Chardham Yatra: Online registration limit increased to 75 per cent

With the registration figure of devotees reaching 17 lakh even before the start of Chardham Yatra, the Uttarakhand government on Monday decided to increase the limit of online registration to 75 per cent.

More registration counters on the yatra route of each dham will also be opened, the state government said.

Garhwal Commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey held a meeting here with hoteliers in Uttarkashi, Rudraprayag and Chamoli regarding the preparations for the Chardham Yatra starting from April 30.

In the meeting, Pandey reviewed the preparations for the Chardham Yatra and also discussed in detail with the hoteliers for the successful conduct of the Yatra and took their suggestions.

This year's Chardham Yatra will begin with the opening of the doors of Gangotri and Yamunotri temples located in Uttarkashi district on April 30 on the festival of Akshaya Tritiya.

The portals of Kedarnath Dham will open on May 2 while the doors of Badrinath Dham will open on May 4.

In the meeting, the hoteliers requested the authorities to increase the limit of online registration. Earlier, the limit of online registration was 60 per cent and offline 40 per cent.

On the suggestion of the concerned district tourism officers and the request of the hoteliers, it was decided to increase the limit of online registration to 75 per cent by making a partial change in the earlier decision.

In view of the possibility of a huge crowd of devotees in the yatra, the hoteliers also requested to set up at least one more registration counter on the Yatra route of each Dham.

Pandey also accepted this demand and directed to open some more registration centers on the yatra routes.

Consent was given to open registration counters for Badrinath Dham in Gauchar, for Gangotri Dham in Heena and Uttarkashi, for Yamunotri Dham in Dobata and Damta and for Kedarnath Dham in Guptkashi.

The Garhwal Commissioner expected the hoteliers to cooperate with the administration in better conduct of the Chardham Yatra and said that all stakeholders will have to make joint efforts to make the Yatra well-organized, safe and pleasant.

The government had started online registration for the Chardham Yatra from March 20 and so far about 17 lakh devotees have registered themselves. The highest number of registrations have been done for Kedarnath by 6,58,149 devotees. 3,10,755 devotees have registered for Yamunotri, 3,44,278 for Gangotri and 5,83,747 devotees have registered for Badrinath.

Offline registration for the Yatra will start from April 25.

Meanwhile, a state-level 'mock drill' will be organized on April 24 to test the preparations related to the Char Dham Yatra.

State Disaster Management Secretary Vinod Kumar Suman said that under the 'mock drill' conducted by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Union Home Ministry and Uttarakhand Disaster Management Authority (USDMA), the preparations of various departments under the IRS (Incident Response System) system will be tested to effectively deal with possible disasters during the Yatra and regarding the Yatra.

He said that seven districts - Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Dehradun, Pauri, Tehri, Haridwar will participate in this 'mock drill'.