Jyotirlinga darshan, Panchkoshi parikrama in Shrawan package July 09th, 2019 from Times of India

The tourism department in association with Kashi Vishwanath Temple authorities will launch a package for pilgrims visiting the city during the holy month of Shrawan beginning July 16. The package will include the popular Dwadash Jyotirlinga ‘darshan’ and Panchkoshi Parikrama.
The tourism department convened a meeting with travel and tour operators on Sunday evening to discuss ways and means to keep the rate of the package affordable for the pilgrims. UP minister of state for law, sports, youth affairs and information Neelkanth Tiwari said if the package sells among the tourists during Shrawan, it would be on offer round the year.

“Panchkoshi Parikrama begins and ends at Manikarnika Ghat after covering ‘panch kos (circumambulation of almost 78 km). Pilgrims, who will take the package, will have to move for a few hundred kilometres after beginning ‘yatra’ from Manikarnika Ghat to board mini bus to cover major stretch of the pilgrimage route and reach Assi ghat, from where they would be taken to Manikarnika Ghat either by boat or on foot,” deputy director tourism Avinash Chandra Mishra told TOI on Monday.
The Dwadash Jyotirlinga (12 auspicious signs of Lord Shiva) temples in Kashi area located mostly in the vicinity of Kaal Bhairo, Kedarghat and Kamaksha areas where e-rickshaws would be deployed for the facility of pilgrims under the package,” said Mishra.

He added that rates of separate and combined packages for individual or groups of pilgrims were also discussed at the meeting. “After the rates of transportation are finalised, the total cost of the package will be decided by adding other components, including lunch. The decision will be taken in a day or two,” he added.

In the presence of divisional commissioner Deepak Agrawal, chief executive officer of Kashi Vishwanath temple Vishal Singh, Mishra and others, Tiwari asked the temple and tourism department officials to introduce the package in Shrawan month for the pilgrims and kanwariyas.
Dwadas Jyotirlings exist in different parts in country like Somnath and Nageshvara in Gujarat, Mallikarjuna in Andhra Pradesh, Mahakaleswar and Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh, Kedarnath in Uttarakhand, Bhimashankar, Grishneshwar and Trimbakeshwar in Maharashtra, Vishwanath in Varanasi, Baidyanath in Jharkhand, Ramanathaswamy in Rameshwaram, Tamilnadu. Temples related to all the of the Jyotirlingas are located in Kashi and worshipped as Dwadash Jyotirlingas.