Uttarakhand tourism board develops app to keep pilgrims safe

Rishikesh: Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board has developed a mobile app for the safety of devotees coming this year on Char Dham yatra or a pilgrimage to the Hemkund Sahib. The pilgrims coming on a visit to the four Himalayan temples of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri and the famous Sikh shrine of Hemkund Sahib will have to instal the app ‘Tourist Care System’ on their mobile phones and register themselves on it, a senior official said.

Once they have registered themselves on the app, a tab will be kept on their movement en route to the five centres of faith with the help of 28 high definition cameras put up at 14 pre-identified locations along the travel route, Tourism Secretary Dilip Jawalkar said.

Pilgrims will get weather updates issued by the meteorological department on the app and advance notifications in case of any weather-related disruptions or impediments like landslides along the way, he said.

The app will have all relevant details about the pilgrims. The Char Dham Yatra begins this year on May 3 with the opening of the Yamunotri and Gangotri temples.

When asked how pilgrims who are not comfortable using android phones will avail of the facility, he said they will be given a wristband with an individual QR code which will be connected to the Tourist Care System App and all relevant information will be shared with them right from the moment they set out on their journey and till their destinations, Jawalkar said.

He also informed that the number plate of the tourist’s vehicle will be linked to the said app through an automatic number plate recorder. After that, all the information about the route, weather updates and alerts will be available to all the passengers through the app.

A control room at the UTDB headquarters will function 24×7 to ensure that the system works well, he said.

The need to develop an app like this had begun to be felt after the 2013 Kedarnath disaster in which thousands of people were killed and thousands went missing.