Over 2L devotees visit Kedarnath till mid-Aug

DEHRADUN: Despite incidents of cloudburst and other calamities hitting the state, Kedarnath witnessed a high turn out of devotees with over 2.60 lakh pilgrims visiting the shrine till August 16.
The turnout of char dham pilgrims is close to state government’s expected mark of three lakh pilgrims. The number of pilgrims who arrived at the shrine from May 9 this year is considered to be good as the average turn out before the 2013 catastrophe was four to five lakh.
“This year’s success is the result of hard work put in by the entire team in the last three seasons, including the ongoing one,” said district magistrate Raghav Langar.
According to Rudraprayag administration, the turnout this year is a major achievement as the number of devotees had gone down to 40,832 in 2014 and the following year it was 1.59 lakh. From 2003, the number of pilgrims who have visited the shrine are in the range of 2.74 lakh to 5.83 lakh.
The administration said that the existing facilities for the pilgrims will be enhanced to motivate over 5 lakh pilgrims to visit Kedarnath in 2017. Giving details of the facilities, Langar told TOI that there are 50 biodigester toilets en route to Kedarnath. “As per our plan, 136 new biodigester toilets would be set up from Sitapur to Kedarnath,” said the senior district official.
Currently, the number of kiosks for tourists is 50 and by the next year, district administration aims to double the number. “We have 100 pre-fabricated huts at the shrine and seeing the high turnout, plans are to construct 60 more pre-fabricated huts,” said Langar. The administration has also made arrangements for private tents at Lincholi from this year.
“This year, we had given to permission to four operators who had set up 10 tents each and nominal amount was charged from the tent owners. After the successful experiment this year, the number of private tents would be increased in 2017,” he said.
The authorities are also planning to make arrangements for more drinking water for the mules on the route.