Jayanti Hills: Alipurduar admin rescues about 2K stranded visitors

MP, 20 Feb 2023, Alipurduar : Prompt action by the Alipurduar district administration helped more than 2000 stranded pilgrims reach Alipurduar from the Jayanti Hills in the Buxa Tiger Reserve. 

Thousands of pilgrims were stuck at Jayanti owing to the non-availability of vehicles. Bus services were run throughout Sunday night to help pilgrims to return to Alipurduar. Operations continued on Monday also. Every year on the occasion of Maha Shivratri, lakhs of pilgrims visit the Mahakal Caves in Jayanti. This year an estimated 1.5 lakh people flocked to the caves. The caves are located in Bhutan adjacent to Jayanti of the Buxa Tiger Reserve in Alipurduar. 

“Like every year this year too a special control room had been opened by the district administration to monitor the movement of pilgrims to Jayanti on the occasion of Maha Shivratri. We got to know through the helpline numbers that a lot of pilgrims are still stuck there due to lack of buses,” stated Surendra Kumar Meena, District Magistrate of Alipurduar. 

The district administration immediately took measures to help them. 

“The pilgrims were brought back to Alipurduar by private buses we had arranged for. The bus service ran throughout the night and Monday morning,” stated the DM. The operation was supervised by Prashant Barman, BDO, Kalchini. 

“Around 1.5 lakh people visited the Mahakal Caves this time. Four additional buses were run by the North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC) for three consecutive days till 7 pm. After 7 pm on Sunday, the calls to the control room started coming from the pilgrims stating that many could not return to Alipurduar owing to the non-availability of buses. 

We immediately arranged 6 buses for the devotees along with food, baby food, cake and biscuits. Though the additional bus services ran the whole night, many pilgrims are still stuck at Jayanti. We started the service from Monday morning again,” stated Prashant Barman, BDO, Kalchini. 

The distance from Jayanti to Alipurduar is 31 km.” This year the number of pilgrims was huge after two years of low turnout owing to the pandemic. Anticipating this, instead of 2 NBSTC buses, a total of 6 buses were run in the Alipurduar-Jayanti route from Friday morning to Sunday evening. 

However, on Sunday, more than 2000 people were stranded. “We applaud the efforts of the district administration for their prompt response,” stated Manoj Ghosh, a local resident of Jayanti. 

Courtesy & source- Millennium Post

https://www.millenniumpost.in/bengal/jayanti-hills-alipurduar-admin-rescues-about-2k-stranded-visitors-509315