Watch: Kumbh Festival gets new tech and facilities

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on updating technology and visitor facilities at the Kumbh Mela festival to ensure the pilgrims who arrive for the religious ceremonies are kept safe and clean.

Prayagraj: Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on updating technology and visitor facilities at the Kumbh Mela festival to ensure the pilgrims who arrive for the religious ceremonies are kept safe and clean.

Every three years millions of Hindus gather in one of the four set locations for Kumbh Mela. It's a series of ritualistic baths at the confluence of Ganges, Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati rivers.

The festival is so big, and the crowd it attracts so immense, it has a reputation for being one of the easiest places to get lost. But this year state and central government are ringing in changes which are transforming this ancient ritual.

A river ambulance sits waiting in case of accidents, many of the rickshaws are electric and emission-free and at every corner, there are mobile cash machines ATMs.

• The ATMs ensure people only carry small amounts of cash, reducing crime like theft, and the police now have 1,400 surveillance cameras ensuring public safety 24 hours a day.|
  

"For the first time we've set up digital centres and mobile ATMs. We appealed to the people coming here to bring as little cash as possible, so they have little liquid money and more digital money. There are banks and mobile ATMs everywhere. It helped bring down the number of criminal incidents like preventing thefts of peoples' belongings and robberies," says Kavindra Pratap Singh, the Senior Police Official at Kumbh festival.

• One of the biggest investments has been the establishment of a central hospital inside the festival grounds. The doctors here, have access to a telemedicine system which allows them to consult specialist medics in other cities. The hospital is treating more than 1000 patients each day during the Kumbh Festival. There are more than one hundred beds and everyone has equal access.

Anil Kumar, deputy chief medical officer says, "The crowd is very big. During an emergency, we can't just transport the patient from here to the city. It takes time. The patients will get stranded here, so we need to diagnose the case as soon as possible. So that is why we have set up ultrasound if there is an acute abdomen (pain), we have x-ray if somebody has sustained a fracture, we can diagnose and we can treat here only."

• Rameshwar Guru says he has visited Prayagraj, India (previously Allahabad) Kumbh more than seven times, but has never seen arrangements like this before.

It's easy to get lost amid the millions of visiting pilgrims during the 49-day long festival.

On 'Mauni Amavasya' the most auspicious day for bathing at the confluence of rivers, more than 20,000 people were lost before being reunited with their families.

• Tech updates here are making a real difference, especially to parents of young children. The government's arranged a tie in with Vodafone. The company hands out radio frequency identification cards (RFID) to children and elderly so they can be easily found, if lost.

• If pilgrims get a little weary they can come to virtual reality kiosks which are popping up everywhere. This one called VR Devotee has launched a paid mobile application which livestreams rituals and prayers from more than 200 temples and holy sites across India.

With so many millions converging in one place it's not surprising sanitation has been an enormous challenge for authorities in previous years, with people defecating in public.

• This year the authorities claim the sewage from the 100,000 portable toilets all around the 35 square kilometers of the Kumbh Mela grounds is being managed.

More than 150 million people are expected to visit the festival which runs throughout March according to Yogi Adityanath the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh State.