The sacred Ambubachi Mela will be held from June 22-26, 2022 at Kamakhya Devalaya after a gap of two years.
The main door of Kamakhya temple will be closed at 8.15 pm on June 22 for the pilgrims and will reopen on June 26.
The temple authorities have issued certain guidelines to follow during the Ambubachi Mela. The temple authorities said that this time there won’t be any provisions of food and lodging for the pilgrims who will come from other states.
It further stated that the temporary stalls will remain closed in the Nilachal Hills during the four days of the Mela.
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Assam Minister Bimal Bora also reviewed preparations for the same with senior officials of tourism department on Monday in Guwahati. The minister also directed the officials to take necessary measures to make the event a grand success.
Although the festival is all set to take place after two long years, the biggest worry for the priests at the temple is a possible catastrophic situation if the gatherings go unrestricted and therefore, the temple authority asked the administration to restrict accommodations in mega camps, free food distribution and government sponsored travel for devotees in trains to minimize the number of visitors.
“Ambubachi should not become a Covid hotspot and cause infection again in a state where there are almost no Covid cases now. If the administration decides to build mega accommodation camps like previous years, it may have a catastrophic impact because hundreds of devotees from different states stay here,” said a Doloi of the temple.
In 2019, about 25 lakh people attended the Ambubachi mela, which was the highest in the history of the festival. Even as large crowds thronged temples in the city in recent weeks during various festivals, the devotees were mostly from Assam. Pilgrims from several north Indian states, where the Covid situation is still a concern, throng the city during Ambubachi.