Over 30,000 pilgrims daily face hours-long traffic jams near Joshimath on NH-7, prompting authorities to implement a token-based gate system for regulation.
India's Badrinath National Highway (NH-7) near Joshimath is experiencing near-standstill gridlock as 30,000–35,000 daily pilgrims overwhelm the route during peak yatra season, prompting authorities to deploy a token-based gate system and 30-minute batch one-way traffic intervals. The bottleneck is compounded by a 10 km stretch of road severely degraded by past ground subsidence, exposing how chronic infrastructure underinvestment creates cascading failures when demand spikes seasonally.
Authorities have deployed extra personnel
May 31, 2026
03:26 pm
What's the storyThousands of pilgrims traveling to Uttarakhand's sacred sites are stuck in massive traffic jams near Joshimath. Long queues of vehicles have been seen on the Badrinath National Highway (NH-7).
Reportedly, 30,000 to 35,000 pilgrims are traveling daily to Badrinath, leading to long periods of standstill.
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