Haridwar abuzz with fast moving Dak Kanwariyas

Sandeep Rawat

Tribune News Service

Haridwar, July 29

Today, the second and final phase of the pilgrimage known as ‘Dak Kanwar’ began. Dak Kanwariyas travelling in vehicles are moving on the Gaziabad-Haridwar-Badrinath highway and the Ambala-Dehradun-Haridwar highway to reach in a time to fetch Ganga jal to be offered at Shivalingams at temples in their hometowns. The deadline is set keeping in mind the distance from their places and Haridwar is covered in the minimum duration. Already, about 1.70 crore Lord Shiva devotees called Kanwariyas have fetched holy Ganga water from Haridwar in the last 10 days.

Vehicles bearing banners depicting the time schedule to cover the pilgrimage are arriving thoughout the day and during night to fetch Ganga jal at Har-ki-Pauri and other ghats. Some Dak Kanwariyas have posters ‘Bholey ki marzi’.

Dak Kanwariyas are arriving from Rajasthan, National Capital Region of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh while pilgrims from western Uttar Pradesh began their yatra today.

Notably, Dak Kanwariyas are noisy and aggressive and they violate rules quite often in a bid to complete the pilgrimage in a time frame. This often leads to traffic congestion and inconvenience to other commuters.

Meanwhile, the mela police has put in place a new traffic diversion plan keeping in mind the arrival of Dak Kanwariyas.

“The entry of commercial and heavy vehicles has been banned in the entire periphery of the district, while only one way traffic is allowed from Dehradun and Roorkee to Haridwar. As we expect the arrival of a record number of Dak Kanwariyas in the last three days of the pilgrimage, we have put in place the second traffic diversion plan. The mela police is monitoring the yatra through drones and CCTV cameras and is using Whatsapp to disseminate information about traffic,” said Circle Officer Prakash Singh Devli.

Vehicles moving towards Haridwar from Dehradun will now go through a longer route of Bahadrabad-Roorkee-Chutmalpur-Dehradun while Char Dham pilgrims are beeing diverted from Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur Tiraha, Deoband, Nagal, Gagalhedi and Chutmalpur towards Dehradun and Rishkesh.