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What kept the crowds away from Sangam, the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna, here -- was it the highly polluted and visibly dirty water or the crime situation in Uttar Pradesh, including the serial killings in Noida. While media personnel here speculated, officials were at pains to convince that they had never made tall claims of an estimated turnout of five-eight million for the day. "I never said that we were expecting five million to eight million people on Wednesday," pleaded P.R. Misra, the chief organiser of the Rs.1.7 billion once in six year event. When his attention was drawn to an official press release in October that claimed eight million devotees, he termed it as a "possible miscalculation". And went on to add, "You should give more credence to what I said yesterday (Tuesday) instead of quoting what was projected as an estimation so many months back." He admitted that the pollution levels of both the Ganga and Yamuna rivers were still above the permissible limits, but ruled out the possibility of people getting dissuaded on account of the deteriorating law and order Uttar Pradesh. Referring to the pollution and flowing filth in the rivers, he said: "That is something beyond our control. All that we can do to dilute the dirt are temporary measures like getting more water released from the Narora dam upstream." He admitted that the city's 57 drains carrying much of the sewage of Allahabad were being emptied either into the Ganga or the Yamuna, and that too upstream of the Kumbh bathing area. "I am not aware why permanent measures have not been taken over the years to divert these drains outside the city limits so that the mela area could be kept clean," he said. The next auspicious bathing day is on Makar Sankranti (Jan 14 and 15), and Misra has already scaled down his own estimates for those dates. "Each of these dates should draw about five million people for the holy bath," he said. But 24 hours earlier he had put up estimates of just double the figure. However, for Jan 19 (Mauni Amavasya), he has stuck to the official estimate. "Jan 19 is going to be the heaviest day when the crowd is not likely to be less than 20 million." The 'shahi snans' (royal baths), to be led by mammoth brigades of naked Naga sadhus, who are traditionally regarded as the most key constituent of the Kumbh mela, are to be held Jan 15, 19 and 23. The tent township is built on 4,000-acres.
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