No Vehicles, Cancelled VVIP Passes: Important Shifts Following the Mahakumbh Stampede: On Mauni Amavasya, one of the most auspicious days of the Kumbh Mela, millions of pilgrims tried to reach the waters for a sacred dip on Wednesday, when the tragedy happened.

 

The state administration has put in place stringent safeguards to stop further tragedies after a pre-dawn stampede at the Sangam region of the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, left 30 people dead and 60 injured. Declaring the entire fair area a No-Vehicle Zone is one of the five significant modifications the government has made.

 

On Mauni Amavasya, one of the most auspicious days of the Kumbh Mela, millions of pilgrims tried to reach the waters for a sacred dip on Wednesday, when the tragedy happened.

 

Vaibhav Krishna, the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Maha Kumbh, stated that pilgrims pressing against barricades to get to the sacred waters caused the rush.

 

Complete No-Vehicle Zone: All cars are not allowed to enter the Maha Kumbh fair area.

 

VVIP Passes Cancelled: There will be no exceptions to the rule that any special passes will grant vehicle admission.

 

One-Way Routes: To facilitate the flow of devotees, a one-way traffic system has been put into place.

 

Restricted Vehicle Entry: To ease traffic, cars coming from Prayagraj's neighboring districts are being stopped at the district borders.

 

Tight Limitations Four-wheeler entry into the city is strictly prohibited until February 4 to preserve order.

 

IAS officers Ashish Goyal and Bhanu Goswami have been instructed to arrive in Prayagraj right away to bolster crowd control measures. Together with Vijay Kiran, both bureaucrats were instrumental in the effective administration of the 2019 Ardh Kumbh. Source NDTV