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is being established at a cost of Varanasi Divisional Commissioner S Rajalingam said this Rs 800 crore service is considered to be India’s first service to run within the city.
“We are planning to make it operational by May 2026. Currently, work on it is underway,” he said.
Elaborating on the rope car service, he said the decision was taken after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s several visits to the holy city to modernize the infrastructure in the city.
PM Modi is representing Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency for the third time.
“a sum of Total Rs 40,000 crore Rs 60,000 crore has been dedicated to the development of the city’s infrastructure. The reason behind this scheme (rope car) is that, earlier, 5,000 people used to visit Sri Kashi Vishwanath Temple every day. But today it is around two lakhs. “This rope car service is also a part of the city’s modernization plan,” Rajalingam told PTI.
He said, Varanasi is home to about 42 lakh people.
Rajalingam hails from Kadayanallur, Tenkasi in Tamil Nadu and had taken charge as Divisional Commissioner of Varanasi in April 2025.
With the roads being narrow and the area becoming ‘dense areas’, the metro rail project was not feasible for the city. Hence, it was decided to set up a rope car service, he said.
“This will be the first rope car service that will run over a distance of 4 kilometers within the city. The travel time from the railway station to Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple is expected to be around 15-20 minutes,” he said.
“We are hoping to set a per person ticket price 50 or 100. Each Gondola (aerial cable car for transporting people) will carry about 10 people. We are planning to install around 148 gondolas in the rope car service,” he said.
“Once the rope car becomes operational, we hope that 1 lakh people per day will be able to travel in it,” he said.
In response to a question, he said that this year the district administration expects about 7 crore people to come to the city. In 2024, footfall was 6.5 crore.
Rajalingam said there are also plans to increase transportation using waterways. “We have started dredging work. We have also deployed eight community ghats along the waterways,” he said.
To strengthen inland waterways, the administration has also increased the use of boats on the Ganga river, Rajalingam said. “Earlier 600 boats were in operation, but today we are running around 2,000 boats to serve the public,” he said.
He said the government is also keen to increase public transport and now electric buses are being operated on important routes.
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