After 29 lakh pilgrims visited the Char Dham shrines in 44 days — with daily footfall at Kedarnath running nearly triple its 12,000-person capacity — Uttarakhand has ordered officials to draft a crowd management framework. The season still has months to run.
The 2026 Char Dham Yatra opened in April with officials assuring the public that no limit on pilgrims would be imposed. By Day 44, over 29.85 lakh devotees had visited Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri — a roughly 14% increase over the same period last year — with more than 32,000 pilgrims arriving at Kedarnath alone on single days against a declared shrine capacity of 12,000. In early June, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami chaired a high-level review meeting and directed officials to formulate a comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure covering shrine capacity limits, parking management, waiting-area amenities, pre-positioned rescue equipment, and real-time communication protocols. The SOP will tell officials how to regulate crowd flow whenever a shrine reaches its capacity — a condition that has been occurring daily since the season began. Officials confirmed no pilgrim limit would be imposed in the meantime. The season ends in November.