Chalo bulawa aaya hai Mata ne bulaya hai Jai Mata di! On the eve of the New Year on December 31, 2022, a record number of devotees reached Katra to get blessings of Mata Vaishno Devi in Jammu & Kashmir. According to the Shrine Board, Jammu & Kashmir, around 23,110 pilgrims offered prayers at the Vaisno Devi shrine on the last day of 2022. Special ‘nakas’ and patrolling were arranged by the security forces for the safe darshan of devotees and to prevent any untoward incident. The other aspect taken care of was crowd management and law and order problems. To tackle this ‘nafri’ (people employed on daily wages) were called in from outside in good strength. Along with the Police, the CRPF jawans joined in for security surveillance. The authorities had several meetings in which they chalked out a plan to follow. Thus they efficiently implemented the plan on ground level for good management of the surging crowd and any law and order problem arising thereof. The devotees walked all the way to the Vaishno Devi shrine under better management in New Year 2023. This year, we did not face any difficulties, said the pilgrims. Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board CEO Anshul Garg tweeted that in 2022, over 91 lakh pilgrims paid obeisance at Mata Vaishno Devi shrine, the highest number compared to last nine years.