The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday (7) said that Prayagraj, which is hosting this year’s Kumbh Mela, will have the largest temporary city in the world.
The city will have 250km long roads and 22 pontoon bridges, and the Kumbh Mela area will be brightened up with over 40,000 LED lights.
"The Kumbh is organised at Triveni Sangam, but it is related to entire Prayagraj area. Keeping this in view, the state government has beautified all the places directly or indirectly linked to the Kumbh. For the convenience of the devotees and the tourists visiting the Kumbh, the facility of reaching there by air, road and river has been made for the first time", read a statement issued by the state government.
The government also said that special security arrangements have been made for devotees. The Indian Express reported that 20,000 policemen are posted on site till the end of the Kumbh (March 4) and they have been trained to deal with crisis situations such as stampede.
Also, CCTVs have been set up to monitor the crowd.
“The system will facilitate controlling and keeping safe the traffic movement and the crowd coming to Mela,” the government said in its statement. “There will be two Control and Command Centres under a scheme of about Rs 247 crore in Prayagraj. Of these, one Control and Command Centre costing Rs 116 crore has been completed and made functional."
According to reports, representatives of 192 countries will be visiting Kumbh in the month of February.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath recently said he expects more than 15 crore devotees to visit the city between January 15 and March 4.
Bob Blackman MP speaks during the event