Post Mahakumbh, it’s time for big dismantling exercise
The infrastructure to be dismantled includes around 3 lakh tents, 1306 km underground drinking water pipelines, 1582 km overhead power cables, over 500 km checkered plates and 30 pontoon bridges.
With the end of the 45-day Mahakumbh 2025 on Wednesday, it’s time for the mega dismantling exercise of the huge infrastructure put in place across 4000 hectares of the tent city in Prayagraj for the religious fair.
The Mahakumbh infrastructure to be dismantled includes around three lakh (300,000) tents of varied sizes and capacity, 1306 kilometres of underground drinking water pipelines, 1582 kilometres of overhead power cables, over 500 kilometres of checkered plates placed across 25 sectors of the tent city, 30 pontoon bridges and 1,50,000 toilets.
The Mahakumbh began on January 13 with the Paush Purnima Snan and concluded on Mahashivratri on February 26, drawing 66.30 crore (663 millioin) pilgrims.
Mahakumbh Nagar district magistrate Vijay Kiran Anand said the 45-day mega religious fair came to an end with the sixth and last bathing festival of Mahashivaratri on February 26. The formal conclusion of the event was announced by chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday. “Now, the big dismantling of the tent city would commence. As per our prior contract with the National Green Tribunal (NGT), we have a period of 15 days from the end of the Mela to complete waste disposal besides dismantle most of the temporary infrastructure established for smooth conduct of the Mela,” he said.
Roughly, 200 to 300 metric tonnes of waste was being generated every day at the Mahakumbh. It was being sent and processed daily at the Baswar waste processing plant in Ghoorpur, around 20 kilometres from the Mela area. The plant has a processing capacity of over 1000 metric tonnes per day.
After the dismantling of the Mela infrastructure, Mahakumbh Nagar -- the 76th district of Uttar Pradesh which came into existence with the Uttar Pradesh government notification of December 2, 2024 -- would also cease to exist most likely after March 31, 2025.
Vijay Kiran Anand said the status of Mahakumbh Nagar as the 76th district would come to an end once devotees stop arriving and most of the dismantling process is completed and the Prayagraj Mela Authority (PMA) officially informs the state government about it.
“It is then the state government would issue the notification of termination of the status of the 76th district,” he added.
Additional district magistrate (Mahakumbh) Vivek Chaturvedi said, “As the setting up of the Mela was a phase-wise process, similarly the dismantling is also being done in a phased manner”.
The other main stakeholder departments of the Mela, including Public Works Department (PWD), UP Jal Nigam and Power Department have separate deadlines for unwinding.
Chief engineer, PWD, AK Dwivedi said, “Dismantling over 500 kilometres of checkered plate roads and 30 pontoon bridges, which took nearly 75 days from October 15 to December 31, 2024 to put in place, will take a similar period for dismantling till May 15.”
Chief engineer, UP Jal Nigam, Sanjay Gautam said, “We have a contract with National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) as per which we have to unwind our infrastructure by May 31, including 1306 kilometres of underground drinking water pipelines, 70,000 water tap connections and 85 tubewells.”
Superintending engineer (Mahakumbh), power department, Manoj Kumar Gupta said unwinding of 1582-kilometre overhead power cables, 45 substations, 78,000 LED lights, 2000 hybrid solar lights, three-layer anti trip infrastructure would take at least 90 days.
“We have time till May 31 for physical unwinding of the temporary power infrastructure, though the complete process, including audit of the entire exercise, will go up to October 2025,” he added
Nevertheless, some of the infrastructure established for Mahakumbh-2025 in and around the Mela area would be retained. These include seven permanent (pucca) bathing ghats, a 13.5-kilometer riverfront road, three temple corridors including Saraswati Koop, Akshaywat and Bade Hanuman temple, besides a sprawling Shivalik Park in Arail, Naini.