Bhopal : If your daily commute gets you trapped in the traffic for 30-35 minutes, spare a thought for the lakhs of devotees stuck for 24 hours! Yes, lakhs of vehicles are seen crawling on NH-30 - Prayagraj-Rewa-Katni-Jabalpur route - for a stretch of 350 kms as the Prayagraj Maha Kumbh Mela nears its climax. An unprecedented 350 km-long traffic jam has stalled vehicle movement from Jabalpur to Prayagraj with a six-hour journey taking over 24 hours, with pilgrims stuck midway.
Bharat Singh Rajput, traveling from Jabalpur with his family, described the ordeal, stating that they left home at 8 AM on Saturday and reached Prayagraj the next morning. "Rewa was a nightmare, with vehicles crawling on NH-30 all the way to the city.” Many devotees were forced to spend the night in their cars, and visibly frustrated. "After Rewa, people are taking 10-12 hours instead of 2 hours to reach Prayagraj. This is probably the longest jam in history," he added.
The Maha Kumbh has witnessed a footfall of about 40 crore devotees in just 26 days, with nearly 1.5 crore people arriving daily. Despite special trains and traffic diversions, the pressure on highways has been overwhelming, especially with weekend crowds and Magh Purnima falling on a Sunday. Several kilometer-long jams were seen particularly on Warrani, Mirzapur, Pratapgarh, Rewa and Kanpur roads.
On the contrary, it was believed that after the departure of Naga sadhus after Makar Sankranti, Mauni Amavasya and Basant Panchami Amrit Snan, the crowd would decrease.
Quite a number of pilgrims are also reaching Prayagraj from South India - Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala - with thousands taking the Jabalpur-Katni-Rewa route. Apart from the surge of people on the NH, insufficient road infrastructure has contributed to the present situation.
Pradeep Srivastava, who left for Prayagraj from Chhindwara with his family, says that on Saturday he reached Jabalpur from Chhindwara in three and a half hours, but it took 12-13 hours to reach Prayagraj from Jabalpur. After this, the traffic jam situation worsened. "My family had to spend the night in the car," said Pradeep.
Concerned over the crisis, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav directed officials to provide food, water, and emergency facilities along the jammed stretch. BJP workers have also stepped in to assist stranded devotees.
Retired DG Arun Gurtu said traffic jams happen because everyone wants to reach their destination in comfort. "Crowd management has its limits. In high-profile events like Kumbh, even well-planned systems can get overwhelmed. So this happens once in a while, and things will return to normalcy,” he said adding, in summers, traffic conditions worsen in hilly areas because everyone wants to go there.''
Some of the biggest traffic snarls globally include:
• China (2010): A 12-day jam on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, forced people to live in makeshift homes.
• Brazil (2012): A 300 km jam in São Paulo left commuters stranded for over 15 hours.
• Egypt (2013): Cairo witnessed a 60 km block that lasted several hours.
• Mumbai (2017): An 8-hour jam choked the stretch between Vashi and Navi Mumbai.
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