The 50-day-long Kumbh Mela began with the royal bath on Makar Sankranti (January 15), while lakhs continue to throng Prayagraj for the world’s largest congregation. Soon after midnight, hundreds of processions of devotees from far and wide began proceeding towards the bathing ghats. Loud religious chantings, as well as melodious singing of bhajans, reverberated through the bylanes of the city. More than 12 crore pilgrims are expected to participate in the mela and take a holy dip at the Sangam - the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers. The Kumbh Mela is held every six years, while the Maha Kumbh takes place every 12 years. Unesco has already included Kumbh in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The mela will end on March 4. Here’s a look at what keeps the Kumbh Mela ticking.

Big-budget exercise

The Uttar Pradesh government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has pulled out all the stops and earmarked Rs 2,800 crore for the Kumbh Mela. The huge mela area has roads that cover a distance of 250 km and 22 pontoon bridges, which will make it the largest temporary city in the world. More than 1 lakh toilets have been set up and as many 10,000 sanitation workers are in place. The whole area has been lit up with 40,000 LED lights.

This year, the Kumbh area is spread over 3,200 hectares, which is about 700 hectares more in comparison to the 2013 edition. Size wise, the area is bigger than countries such as Vatican City, Monaco, Nauru and Tuvalu.

Heavy security arrangements are in place with police and paramilitary forces deployed at strategic spots. Uttar Pradesh DGP O.P. Rawat said the grand traditions of the Kumbh have been blended with modern police techniques to ensure an incident-free and seamless event.

The whole region has been demarcated into nine zones and 20 sectors with the deployment of over 20,000 police personnel, 6,000 Home Guards, 40 police stations, 58 outposts, 40 fire stations, 80 companies of central forces and 20 companies of Provincial Armed Constabulary.

A modern integrated command-and-control centre has been set up for 24-hour monitoring through 1,200 CCTV cameras. “There will be real-time video analytics for crowd management, real-time detection and alert algorithm in overcrowding circumstances and detection of uni- or bi-directional and wrong-way movements. The Trinetra app will be used for surveillance on terrorists, criminals and suspicious elements,” said Rawat.

The focus of the exercise lies at the VIP Ghat created for foreign delegates. The flags of 72 countries have been put up and a green carpet laid out on the sandy ghat.

Tech meets tradition

For the first time, an automatic number plate recognition system is being used, which can detect vehicles by colour, licence plate and date-time combinations.

In a bid to trace children lost during the massive congregation, the police will be using RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags for kids under 14 years. The police has collaborated with Vodafone and 40,000 RFID tags will be used. RFID is a form of wireless communication that incorporates the use of electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling in the radio-frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to uniquely identify an object or a person. Reliance Jio has also launched an app with family locator, lost and found features and other customised services for the mela. Bharti Airtel will deploy pre-5G network technology for those taking part in the mela.

Union Earth Sciences Minister Harsh Vardhan launched a special weather service, which includes setting up of four automatic weather stations. The purpose is to provide information of the prevailing weather and a three-day forecast. A mobile app named KumbhMela Weather Service has also been developed to disseminate live weather information on temperature, humidity, rainfall and winds.

All roads lead to Prayagraj

The government has made elaborate plans for transportation. Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation has arranged 5,000 buses from across the state to ply to Prayagraj. A new civil airport complex was created by the Airports Authority of India in a record time of 11 months. The new terminal has been built in 50 acres at the Bamrauli military air base at a cost of Rs 164 crore. The terminal can handle up to 300 passengers an hour.

The North Central Railway has launched Rail Kumbh Seva Mobile App that will help those arriving for the mela and provide information regarding Mela special trains. The railways will deploy as many as 800 special trains.

The Centre will launch an aeroboat service from Varanasi to Prayagraj on January 26. According to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, the Russian-made aeroboat can carry 16 people in one go. It can cruise up to 80 km per hour and requires a depth of only 10 cm.