Mahakumbh mela: Rlys allows passengers to book unreserved tickets for mela 15 days in advance

To clear the rush of passengers travelling to Allahabad during the period of Mahakumbh next year, railways have decided to extend the window for buying unreserved tickets to 15 days from the current three days on the railway ticketing app.

This facility is only available to travel to 12 stations in Allahabad.

In a circular, railways have said that it was anticipating a huge rush during the event and to release some of the pressure from mela stations, it has decided to enhance the period of purchase of "reverse" tickets during the event.

"If a passengers purchases an unreserved return ticket through UTS app from any station on Indian railways for journey to any one of the 12 stations in Allahabad region serving the Mahakumbh Mela, the return ticket shall be allowed to be booked up to 15 days in advance excluding the date of journey," it said.

This means that if a passenger at Nagpur wishes to purchase ticket to any station in Allahabad mela area and back, he can purchase the same 15 days in advance. No refund shall, however be allowed on such return tickets.

This facility will however be allowed for tickets purchased on or after January 11, 2019 up to March 2019.

Passengers can purchase unreserved tickets through the UTS app three days in advance (excluding the day of journey) for journey of 200 km and above.

The 12 stations where this facility can be availed are - Allahabad Junction, Allahabad City, Naini, Subderganj, Rambag, Prayag Ghat, Daraganj, Phaphumau, Jhusi, Vindhyachal, Chheoki and back.

Railways have made massive plans for the event. Projects worth more than Rs 700 crore are underway at Allahabad in preparation for the mela which will begin on January 15, 2019.

Four big enclosures to house about 10,000 pilgrims are under construction at Allahabad Junction. These enclosures will have vending stalls, water booths, ticket counters, LCD TVs and public address systems.

46 works costing more than Rs 700 crore are slated to be completed by this month end. It will also operate nine Special Tourist Package Trains from different zones during Kumbh Mela.

The national transporter will build new skywalks, platforms, foot overbridges and road over bridges for the festival which is expected to see lakhs of people congregating the city.

It has also planned to operate five special trains for transporting 5000 Pravasi Bhartiya Divas attendees from Allahabad to New Delhi. These trains would be completely AC-IInd Class and will have facilities equivalent to the latest rakes of 'Humsafar' express.

The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas will be held in the holy city of Varanasi in January 2019.