Beginning from scratch, they mapped biggest human show on earth

There are some very human elements at work behind the largest spiritual gathering on the planet. The mela administration, with 80-odd officials and a mela officer in the driver’s seat, is the body that has mapped out the Mahakumbh Mela as we see it. They’ve worked at putting infrastructure in place for the seven crore that are said to be attending the gathering.

At any rate, even if a crore or two is dropped, it’s a mindboggling figure.

Preparations for Mahakumbh 2001 kicked off months before pilgrims were reaching for their Gangajal cans. “We started planning a whole year in advance,” says Jeevesh Nandan, the all-important mela-in-charge. TheIAS officer himself was posted to Allahabad as District Magistrate in September 1999. By December, he was sitting down with a team thatgradually grew as the months slipped away, drawing up a master plan for the real thing.

The master plan was in place by August-September 2000, but the Ganga had other ideas. “All our plans stay on paper until we know the course of the river,” says Nandan. Thus, when the river’s course changed, so didmany of the plans.

The mela area has been carved up into 11 sectors. “It’s a basic principle of administration: when you have to manage such a large gathering, you divide the area into sectors,” intones Nandan, an IIT-Delhigraduate.

Sector magistrates are in charge of each sector, and Nandan has five additional mela officers and one deputy officer to lighten hisload. There are 24 agencies at work at the Kumbh: they include the Public Works Department, Jal Nigam, the Allahabad Nagar Nigam and the Allahabad Development Authority, state departments of health, irrigation, transport, food, power, tourism, culture, even horticulture and homeopathy.

But even before these departments were roped in, some basics had to be gotout of the way. O.P. Verma, additional mela officer, was posted herefrom Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh in July last year. This no-nonsense officer oversees all office work, correspondence with the government and liasing between departments. “One of the first things we did was tomap the area,” he says. No easy task this, since at places, the land was bumpy and had to be levelled, at other places, land filling had to be carried out.

The mela officers also pulled out report cards of previous Kumbhs, and tapped officials who’d been there before. “Then, the process of land acquisition started, where we handled 2,000 applications ofindividuals and institutions, followed by budgeting,”says Verma. The mela budget is Rs 120 crore — Rs 80crore from the state government and Rs 40 crore fromthe Centre. “We were new then, and didn’t have enough people towork with. The office you’re seeing now wasn’t there,I didn’t even have a phone,” says Verma. “Then, asbudgetary sanctions for departments came in, so didmore staff, typists, computers.”

Now, of course, Verma, like 20 other officers, has the luxury of a mobile phone that rings almost as frequently as his land line. The mela office is the favourite haunt of those who want land allotments, ahole in their tent fixed or a ration card to avail ofthe 60-70 ration shops run by the government at themela.

Policing the crores is another very important functionwhich has its own man at the helm. Increased threatperceptions at the Kumbh Mela have made it the“country’s biggest police district”, as SSP in charge,Alok Sharma, puts it. Around 11,000 policemen aredeployed at the Kumbh, along with 40 companies of theProvincial Armed Constabulary and other paramilitaryforces. Not too surprisingly, officials generally average 20hours a day. Apart from a few officers like Nandan,who has the luxury of returning home every night, therest simply walk out of one tent into another which istheir temporary residence. Yet, the melaadministration isn’t a hot favourite among sadhus andpilgrims. They have been very vocal over the lack offacilities, and reports in the local press about melamismanagement are frequent.

“Problems? Of course there are problems. After all,people want the earth. It’s nothing to do with us,it’s the attitude of the people,” says Verma. Adds Laksmhi Kant Mishra, a supervisor in the all-important Sector No.4, where the sadhus’ akharasare, “It’s not possible to please all, but we try.Look at my office, it’s overrun by pilgrims who can’tfind the akharas they were looking for. So they landedup here. Does this happen anywhere else? And can anyother country on earth ever organise anything on thisscale?”