About 250 more people will be able to make it to Kailash Mansarovar Yatra this year as the Government has opened registration for the journey via new route in Sikkim (Nathula) on Thursday. Announcing the Yatra, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that now the pilgrims can drive up to the last point, and need to walk only 35 kilometres while doing parikrama of Mount Kailash.
The route was opened following an agreement between India and China during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to India. It was formally announced during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tour to India last year.
“Till now only those who were young and in extremely good health were able to go for the Yatra since the journey is very difficult. But now all can go up to Mount Kailash for darshan,” said Swaraj.
The total package of the tour via Nathula is Rs1.7 lakh (only 20,000 more than the old route), and the journey will be covered in 19 days compared to 25 days via old route that is from lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand. The pilgrims have to trek a treacherous route of nearly 250 km via lipulekh route. The Yatra via Nathula begins on June 18, while the one via lipulekh pass will start on June 8 to September 9 in which 18 batches of 60 people will go. last date to apply is April 18, 2015.
This year 250 pilgrims in five batches of 50 each will go through new route. The selected pilgrims will be flown down to Bagdogra from Delhi and then taken to Dharchen (in China) via Nathula via road. Officials in Ministry of External Affairs said that even though Gangtok to Nathula is a one-day journey by road, the 19-days time has been kept to help pilgrims acclimatise.
“This is the first year and we want to go slow. Hence, there will be long halts of minimum two days at places like 15th Mile, Sherathang, Nathula etc,” said an official. The application for the Yatra is to be made online on website kmy.gov.in.