Now, hourly weather update along Chardham

DE HR AD UN: Soon, pilgrims en route to Chardham will be able to view hourly updates on weather information to plan their journey ahead.

The state government has decided to set up digital screens at select places along the Chardam yatra route, where weather forecasts issued by the Dehradun Meteorological Center will be displayed.

In the first phase, the screens will come up at a few places on way to holy shrines of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. Besides weather information , the screen will also alert the pilgrims about the possibility of any extreme weather change and the precautions they should take in such a situation. The decision was taken in a meeting between Uttarakhand chief secretary S Ramaswamy and a team of senior IMD officials, organised in Dehradun on Monday.

4 LAKH PILGRIMS VISIT CHARDHAM IN 15 DAYS

More than four lakh pilgrims have visited the shrines of Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath in the first fortnight of the Chardham pilgrimage, marking a 15% rise in tourist arrivals this year.

As per the figures provided by the tourism department, around 24,000 pilgrims are visiting the shrines daily with Badrinath emerging as the main centre of attraction like in the past.

Of the 4,17,025 pilgrims who completed the pilgrimage so far, 1,37,045 went to Badrinath, 99,346 reached Yamunotri, 97,815 trekked to Kedarnath and 82,815 paid obeisance at Gangotri. Officials said the tourist inflow was up by 15% as compared to the previous year’s arrivals.

A comparative data reveals that the tourist arrivals at Gangotri has remained slow unlike in previous years when it was always more than Yamunotri and Kedarnath.