Mahakumbh Special Train : Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav reached Prayagraj by rail from Varanasi to take stock of the railway's preparations for Mahakumbh 2025. He said here on Sunday that for the convenience of the devotees, the Railways will run about 13,000 trains including 3,000 special and 10,000 regular trains, and about 1.5 to 2 crore passengers will be provided train travel facilities.

Inspection of various stations in Prayagraj

After inspecting various stations in Prayagraj under the Northeast Railway, Northern Railway, and North Central Railway, the Railway Minister told reporters, "I also inspected the new bridge over the Ganga river which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi very soon. A new bridge has been built over the Ganga river here after 100 years. Today I personally inspected five stations. The holding areas at these stations have been built very well where devotees can sit comfortably till the train arrives. Color coding has been used in the holding areas and tickets so that devotees can reach the right platform and catch the right train."

Preparation for the railway

Ashwini Vaishnav said, "For the first time, mobile UTS is being used here in which a person holding a mobile device will provide tickets to the passengers. Earlier, it was used during the Rath Yatra of Lord Jagannath in Puri. The rail on the Prayagraj-Varanasi route has been doubled for the Maha Kumbh. The Phaphamau-Janghai section has been doubled. Second entrances have been made at JJhansi Phaphamau, Prayagraj, Subedarganj, Naini, and Chheoki stations."

Control room at every station

He said that a control room has been set up at every station and the master control room of all these control rooms has been set up at Prayagraj station where live feeds of all stations will be available. Apart from these, the feed will also be received here from Maha Kumbh Nagar and State Police through CCTV cameras. One special thing is that at almost every station, arrangements have been made for passengers to travel in one direction on the foot over the bridge. He said that during the fair, trains will be installed in such a way that passengers have to use their foot over the bridge as little as possible. The Railway Minister said that more than 23 holding areas have been created and 48 new platforms have been built at various stations of Prayagraj. Similarly, 21-foot over bridges (FOBs) have been built and 554 ticketing arrangements have been made. Ashwini Vaishnav said that the Railways has spent more than Rs 5,000 crore on preparations for the Maha Kumbh in the last two years.