The offline system to register for the Chardham Yatra is heaving under the weight of a massive rush of pilgrims at a time the online process has been stuttering.
Yatris angry over having to stand for hours since early morning to register themselves physically at the transit camp in Rishikesh on Monday broke the windowpane of a counter.
As the online registration process has been patchy at best, thousands of yatris have reached Rishikesh in the hope that they can enlist themselves for the pilgrimage at the government counters before proceeding to Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri.
A government official said some pilgrims damaged the windowpane of a registration counter at the bus stand in Rishikesh after a prolonged wait in the queue.
Raju Banerjee, a pilgrim from Asansol, told reporters: “The officials are blaming the people for the chaos, but they are taking 20 to 30 minutes to register one pilgrim when there are thousands of devotees in the queue. Someone got angry on Monday and broke the windowpane, prompting the officials manning the counters to stop work.”
“We join the queue at 6am, but they fail to complete the registration process even at 8pm. The place is swarming with touts, who offer speedy registration for money,” Banerjee said.
“The clerks at the counters have no sense of urgency. They take tea breaks whenever they want to and disappear for over an hour at lunchtime. They are also discouraging us from going to all four places and instead asking us to opt for two,” he added.
There were 12 counters till Sunday. Transport minister Pradeep Batra said: “I have asked the officials to open four more.”
But sources said the extra counters were of no help as the authorities had introduced slots for offline registration to prevent a rush, but those had got filled up by 2pm.
According to government data, 4,96,226 pilgrims had visited Badrinath between April 23 and May 23. The Kedarnath shrine had welcomed 7,51,918 pilgrims till May 23. Gangorti and Yamunotri saw 3,18,064 and 3,25,150 pilgrims visit,
respectively.
