Char Dham Numbers Don’t Add Up: No System in Uttarakhand or India to Track Real Pilgrim Footfall
Dehradun | June 3
Here’s the hard truth — Uttarakhand doesn’t know how many people actually visit the Char Dham.
And it’s not alone. No Indian state, including this Himalayan one that hosts one of the country’s most sacred yatras, has a robust system to track "unique visitors."
What we get instead is a headcount jumble — inflated, repetitive, and often politically convenient.
This came out loud and clear during an online dialogue organised by the SDC Foundation with prominent stakeholders of the Char Dham Yatra.
From experts to tour operators and hotel associations — all were on the same page: the pilgrimage has become unnecessarily complex, and the government is boosting footfall figures without knowing who’s really coming.
One pilgrim = four visits? That’s the math.
“If one person visits all four dhams — Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath — they’re counted four times,” said Rawal Pawan Prakash Uniyal of Yamunotri.
That means four pilgrims doing the full circuit? 16 visits on record. Reality? Just four actual individuals.
And that’s just the beginning of the numbers game. Online registration is mandatory, but no one knows how many of those who register actually show up.
There’s no mechanism to track dropouts, nor to crosscheck real-time ground footfall.
As Anoop Nautiyal, founder of SDC Foundation, bluntly put it: “Registration is different, actual numbers are different.”
Broken roads
They didn’t hold back. Ashok Semwal of Gangotri said even meetings with the PM and HM have gone in vain.
Roads in Yamunotri and Gangotri are still dangerous and narrow.
“Instead of widening existing roads, new routes are being planned that will take years, cost more, and damage the environment,” he warned.
Tourism ≠ Pilgrimage
Tour operators too are frustrated. Abhishek Ahluwalia, President of the Uttarakhand Tour Operators Association, said many operators have opted out of Char Dham packages because of the complicated maze of OTPs, trip cards, and long queues.
“Online slots are booked till June 10, and the heat is killing for those waiting offline,” he said.
Char Dham ≠ Kainchi Dham anymore?
Rawal Uniyal dropped a bombshell: Kainchi Dham (Neem Karoli Baba Ashram) is attracting more people than Yamunotri now.
That’s a new shift in religious tourism trends — and a red flag.
Inflated Figures, Deflated Trust
The government says nearly 6 crore tourists visited Uttarakhand in 2023.
But critics say the real number of unique visitors is more likely 2 to 3 crore.
And Char Dham Yatra’s actual unique pilgrims?
Somewhere between 35 to 50 lakh, not the 1 crore+ claims floating around.
“Footfall data is a convenient narrative tool. But without a unique ID-based tracking mechanism, we’re just recycling numbers — not capturing reality", say critics.
Time to Fix the System
SDC Foundation has called for an annual conference of all stakeholders and minimum government interference to preserve the spiritual essence of the yatra.
But more than that, it’s time for Uttarakhand — and India — to invest in a tech-enabled, transparent pilgrim tracking system that doesn’t confuse headcount with human beings.
Because until then, the Char Dham numbers? They’re more fiction than fact.
Ajay Puri, Naveen Mohan, Ashutosh Pandey, Harsh Vardhan Singh, Paramjit Singh Kakkar, Jagmohan Mehandiratta, Devender Singh Monty, Trilochan Bhatt, Rakesh Kapoor, Praveen Upreti, Vinod also participated in the dialog.
#CharDhamYatra #PilgrimTruth #TourismDataCrisis #UttarakhandMatters
