The Uttarakhand government has banned the use of mobile phones within 200-meter radius of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri temples in the state due to rising tourist footfalls at these revered sites.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the chardham pilgrimage will set a new record of pilgrims footfall this season.
The State Tourism Department called it a sign of record breaking flow of pilgrims to the four shrines as the pilgrimage season is scheduled to start on May 10.
The shower coupled with the snow is billed to be a timely gift for the rabi and horticulture crops of the state.
Traffic was stalled and disrupted on the Gangotri-Yamunotri National Highway due to the falling and piling up of debris from landslides in the region
The increase in tourist movement has brought huge relief to businessmen and people involved in the tourism industry.
Amidst chanting of Vedic hymns and chant of ‘Ganga mata ki jai’ the Gangotri shrine, located in district Uttarkashi, reopened at 12:35 pm on Sunday. The portals of Yamunotri shrine were reopened, after six month of winter break, at 12.41 p.m.
With the economic and developmental activities accelerating at a fast pace, there has been a corresponding increase in human activities. While figures of a few lakhs of tourists and pilgrims are quoted, we often tend to overlook the related increase in vehicular traffic and particularly those of diesel vehicles. Since time immemorial, Ganga and Gangotri have been sacred to multitudes of our countrymen and hence the sensitivity about any regulatory measures in understandable. But ultimately these will have to be balanced.
Right from the day news about Uttarakhand government forming a bill on lines of the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board and other trusts came into light the Teerth Purohits began staging protest.
The Uttarakhand tourism department has also issued an advisory to the pilgrims for carrying woollens as cold weather prevails in towns located in the high Himalayas.
