Tourists head for Lahaul, over 28,000 vehicles cross Atal Tunnel in 24 hours

Dipender Manta

Mandi, December 25

In view of the heavy tourist influx to Lahaul valley for Christmas and New Year celebration, the district police of Lahaul and Spiti has divided the area from Atal Tunnel up to Sissu on the Manali-Leh highway in three sectors for better traffic management. As a large number of tourist vehicles were heading towards Atal Tunnel and Sissu beyond Manali, long traffic jams were occurring at different locations between Manali and Sissu for the last three days, rendering the traffic movement very slow. The police was facing challenge in managing such a huge volume of traffic.

Data gathered from the police department revealed that in the last 24 hours from Sunday 8 am to today 8 am record 28,210 vehicles crossed Atal Tunnel to and fro from Manali and Lahaul side. As many as 14,865 vehicles crossed the Atal tunnel from Manali towards Lahaul, while 13,345 travelled via the tunnel from Lahaul side towards Manali in the last 24 hours. Of the 28,210 vehicles, 16,315 were from Himachal, while 11,895 were from outside the state.

Drones maintaining surveillance

Despite bone-chilling cold in the region, the police were struggling hard to manage the traffic. Police personnel have been deployed at key locations from Atal Tunnel up to Sissu to regulate the flow of traffic. The police were maintaining surveillance over the traffic movement using drones and CCTV cameras. —Mayank Chaudhary, Lahaul and Spiti SP

SP Lahaul and Spiti Mayank Chaudhary said, “From 8 am to 4 pm today 9,602 vehicles crossed the Atal Tunnel. Despite bone-chilling cold in the region, the police were struggling hard to manage the traffic. Police persons have been deployed at key locations from Atal Tunnel up to Sissu to regulate the flow of traffic. The police were maintaining surveillance over the traffic movement using drones and CCTV cameras.”

According to Kullu SP Sakshi Verma, around 16,000 vehicles crossed Manali from Kullu side yesterday, while 4,000 vehicles headed to Manikaran and Kasol beyond Bhuntar. Around 1,000 vehicles moved towards Banjar and Thirthan valleys of Kullu district. The SP stated that additional force has been deployed at key locations to manage the traffic.

Mandi SP Soumya Sambasivan said that in the last three days a significant surge in the number of vehicles was recorded in the district on the Chandigarh-Manali highway. The SP said that on December 23, as many as 14,045 vehicles entered Mandi, while yesterday the number went up to 15,031. Today the number of vehicles entering Mandi was recorded as 12,551 till 5 pm.

Tourists travelling to Atal Tunnel and Sissu said that due to heavy rush of vehicles the traffic movement was extremely tardy beyond Manali.

Anup Thakur, president of Kullu-Manali Paryatan Vikas Mandal, said that the room occupancy in hotels of Manali has gone up beyond 90 per cent, elating hoteliers. After the rain disaster in July this year, the tourism industry of Kullu-Manali is coming back on the track.