Sunday, 28 APRIL 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) is setting up electric vehicle charging stations along the Char Dham Yatra route under the scheme for special assistance to State for capital investment. These charging stations will help mitigate pollution from fossil fuel vehicles at a time when more than 15 lakh people have registered for the pilgrimage slated to start in the first fortnight of May. Further, bookings in the GMVN guest houses on the Yatra circuit have crossed more than Rs 11 crore in value so far, the Tourism and Culture minister Satpal Maharaj said.
Addressing the media here regarding the preparations for the Char Dham Yatra on Saturday, he said that GMVN had been made the executing agency for setting up the EV charging stations on the Yatra route. These stations will have universal chargers which can be used to power all electric vehicles. The minister said that the GMVN is working at a brisk pace to set up the EV charging stations in its 24 guest houses and four bus stations of the Uttarakhand Transport Corporation. In addition to this, the THDC India Limited is also working on setting up EV charging stations in 14 tourist rest houses of the GMVN on the Yatra circuit, the minister said. He said, “A State level control room has been set up in Dehradun for the Char Dham Yatra. This control room will remain operational daily during the pilgrimage season from 7 AM to 10 PM. The service is also functioning at present. A token/slot system will also be put in place so that the pilgrims do not have to wait in queue for long to pay obeisance to the deity in the temple. An inspection of the proposed sites for this will be conducted by officials of the agency concerned along with the officials of the Tourism department, police and district administration. With the implementation of this system, the pilgrims will not have to wait for more than one hour in a queue.”
The minister further said that considering the large number of people registering for the Char Dham Yatra, the number of pilgrims is expected to break last year’s record this time. The booking in GMVN guest houses on the pilgrimage circuit is consistently rising even before the start of the yatra and the government expects that the number of pilgrims undertaking the pilgrimage this year will cross 56.31 lakh pilgrims who visited the State last year. Maharaj further said that from February 22 till date, online bookings amounting to more than Rs eight crore have been made in the 94 guest houses of the GMVN on the Yatra route which coupled with the offline booking has taken the total to more than Rs 11 crore.
