Basant Panchami: 2,500 UPSRTC buses reserved for devotees returning to their hometown

Expecting a huge surge of devotees and tourists gathering ahead of the third and final bathing festival of ongoing Mahakumbh-2025 on Basant Pachami, the Uttar Pradesh State Roadways Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) has fine-tuned operation of its fleet of buses.

UPSRTC will be operating its fleet of 6,000 buses at set intervals, keeping in mind pilgrims travelling in a particular destination or direction and for this a fleet of reserved buses too has been made ready. These are besides a fleet of shuttle buses that would also run to provide essential connecting service between temporary set up bus station and parking areas, and the mela area, officials shared.

UPSRTC has separately reserved 2,500 buses for the returning visitors during the Basant Panchami bathing festival. Roadways buses will be available every 15 minutes for the visitors arriving at the four temporary bus stations from the Mahakumbh area, said MK Trivedi, regional manager, Prayagraj region, UPSRTC.

In this too, the maximum number of 1,500 buses have been reserved at the temporary bus station of UPSRTC built in Jhunsi for Varanasi bound pilgrims, 600 buses at the bus station built in Bela Kachhar for Lucknow, 300 buses are reserved at Nehru Park Bus Station for visitors going towards Kanpur and 100 buses are reserved at the Leprosy crossing temporary bus station for the devotees going towards Mirzapur and Banda, Trivedi shared.

Shuttle service every 2 minutes

A large number of devotees are reaching Mahakumbh on Basant Panchami Amrit Snan festival at Mahakumbh. While the fleet of roadways buses is ready in the temporary bus stations built around the city, 550 shuttle buses have also been made available to take the devotees from these temporary bus stations to the places near Mahakumbh and then back. According to roadways officials, shuttle service will be available at a gap of every 2 minutes on Basant Panchami. Separate arrangements have also been made to avoid crowding in the bus stations, they added.

Till the evening of February 2, 33.61 crore people have taken a holy dip in Sangam in Prayagraj Mahakumbh.