Junagadh News – About Girnar Mountain Parvat

Mount Girnar(Junagadh - Saurastra) to go Wi-Fi soon.

The pilgrim's progress on Gujarat's tallest mountain is set to be Wi-Fi-enabled. So, the next time you climb mount Girnar, you may carry your laptop to keep a tab on work as well.

"It's not viable to lay a cable network on the mountain. So we plan to install Wi-Fi system around the walking track on the mountain," said district collector Ashwani Kumar. While he refused to reveal the project cost, Kumar said the administration was in talks with a few companies and final decision will be taken soon'.

Over 25 lakh tourists throng about 30 temples, including famous Ambaji Mandir and Jain Derasar, dotting the seven peaks of the 1100-metre tall mountain.

The decision to make the mountain Wi-Fi enabled was taken to webcast the 25th Girnar Mount Climbing Competition which is slated for next month.

"We wanted to take the event to a wider audience through webcast. Though we decided to install Wi-Fi for webcasting the competition, we will continue the use the technology even after the competition," he said.

An average of 1,000 contestants participate in the event. This time around about 1,800 participants will join the event.

"Girnar Climbing Competition started in 1971 and continued up to 1979. Again efforts were made to rejuvenate the competition in 1991 by State Bank of Saurashtra.

But the event has been regularly organized since 1996 in both men and women category after the state government took over," said Devashi Ambalia, project director of the event.

Junagadh News - Girnar Mountaineering Competition 2010

A total of 1,795 entries have been received from 16 districts across the state for the State-Level Girnar Mountaineering Competition to be held on January 4 next year.

It is to be followed by the national-level Girnar Mountaineering Competition on February 1.

The competition, which is organized every year by the state’s Youth, Sports and Cultural department, has support of the Junagadh(Saurastra) district administration, which is now pooling in its resources to remove the last-minute glitches, if any.

Out of a total 1,795 entries received so far, majority have come in from Junagadh (1,365), followed by Rajkot (161), Jamnagar (81), Amreli (67), Porbandar (28), Gandhinagar (24), Kutch (16), Surendranagar and Dahod (14 each), Valsad (9), Sabarkantha (6), Panchmahals (5), Bhavnagar (2), and one entry each from Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Kheda districts.

Dev Kumar Aambaliya, coordinator of the competition and deputy mamalatdar with the state Revenue department, said: “Out of the total entries received so far, 1,448 are under the men’s category, and the remaining 347 in the women’s category.”

He also said that a record of 55.33 minutes had been established in the men’s group in last year’s competition, which involved a total of 4,862 steps.

The women’s group on the other hand had set a record of 35.15 minutes last year in which they had to take a total of 2,200 steps.

“We are trying for a live telecast and have also conducted a survey in this regard. The competition is mainly aimed at providing thrill and adventure to the youth along with giving them a national-level exposure,” he added.

Aambaliya further said that the Girnar Mount Climbing Competition is unique in its own way with no such competition being organised anywhere else across the country.