
Inside the big, fat $30 billion Maha Kumbh economy

Summary
- Apart from being one of the biggest spiritual congregations, Maha Kumbh has been a trade hotspot for many centuries. What are small and big businesses selling and promoting this time? The list is diverse and includes, well, even SIPs! Our ground report.
Prayagraj: About 40 years ago, Mahavir Singh tasted his first success in business. Just eight years-old, he took his family’s camel to the famous Pushkar fair, near his hometown in Rajasthan. He let tourists ride the camel and earned ₹1,000 in a day. Fairs, or melas, he realized, were a great place to make a fast buck. The thought stayed with him.
At Prayagraj, where the Maha Kumbh mela is being held this year, Singh has invested over ₹4 crore to install 350 tents. Some of them are luxury tents. They resemble camps erstwhile royalty rested in during their hunting safaris, replete with classy linen and wooden furniture. At the higher end, a luxury tent can come for ₹40,000 a night.
Singh is hoping there will be enough takers; he has a huge loan to service. But then, the river banks at Prayagraj are now dotted with thousands of similar or even more luxurious tents. They are all eyeing a piece of the same pie—the well-heeled pilgrim.
They have started arriving in hordes to participate in the world’s largest spiritual congregation that includes ascetics, saints, sadhus, sadhvis and kalpvasis. Between 13 January, when the mela, held once in 144 years began, and 26 February, when it will end, the city is expecting over 400 million people, higher than the population of the US.

A mini city, divided into 25 sectors, has come up on the banks of the three rivers (Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati) at Prayagraj—the mela spans about 4,000 hectares. Besides hospitality, visitors need a huge array of products and services. Businesses, small and big, want to latch on to that opportunity, just like Singh. In fact, Kumbh has been a trade hotspot for many centuries—Chinese monk Xuanzang, who travelled to India in the 7th century AD, made a mention of the congregation.
In a report subtitled ‘Economic blessings from Mahakhumb 2025’, Sprout Research, an investment research outfit, estimated financial transactions worth $30 billion during the mela period. “Assuming an average expenditure of ₹6,000-8,000 per person, incurred by approximately 80% of the anticipated 400-450 million devotees, the Kumbh mela could generate transactions totalling ₹2-2.5 trillion ($25-30 billion) over 45 days," the report stated.
Tea for the soul
This writer landed in Prayagraj on a cold and foggy morning. Announcements from ‘lost and found’ booths permeated the soundscape of the Kumbh area. Many visitors had lost their wallets or phones; some couldn’t find their relatives.
Thousands of traders, meanwhile, crossed temporary bridges, called pontoons, built on river banks to reach their chosen sector. They sold beads, necklaces, perfumes (claiming it has musk), bangles made of ivory, medicines, clothes and chillum (small pipe). All these products came with a spiritual twist—they promised customers some sort of salvation, relief from the physical world.

Rahul Bharti, a 22-year-old Bsc student, placed himself rather ingeniously near the changing rooms built on the river banks. He sold tea. As pilgrims emerged from the icy water after taking holy dips, his beverage was in hot demand. So much so, he frequently ran out of milk.
“I bought 15 kg of sugar, 5 kg of ginger and stored them at my home nearby. I have borrowed ₹8,000 from friends and family to set up the tea stall and have recovered my investment in the first three days," said Bharti, whose parents are daily wage earners. “I have to travel a few kilometres everyday to get milk which is now sold for ₹65 per litre versus ₹28 earlier."
Many other residents of Prayagraj have also seen their earnings double. An autorickshaw driver who identified himself as Saddam, is one of them. Saddam wore a brown jacket, kept a shawl over his legs, a muffler tightly wound around his head and ears. He used wired headphones to communicate with customers, who were instructed to call him for pick up and drop well in advance.
He estimated he could earn ₹5,000-6,000 a day, ferrying passengers from the city to the Kumbh area. In regular months, his earnings would be less than half that amount.
“I was working in Kuwait as a driver and decided to return just before Kumbh. We are locals; we know the routes even on days when there are road blocks," the 31-year-old said.
Kumbh in Reels
As you walk around the mela, you realize another all-pervasive thing: almost everyone was live streaming or video recording their experiences. But one cohort is making a lot of money—social media influencers. They are being paid by tent owners, local shops, large corporations, and even sages who desire for more disciples.
If you scroll through social media and search for Kumbh, you would discover a blitzkrieg of reels—interviews of sages and pilgrims, on life in a tent, on holy dips. And some have travelled quite a distance to shoot.

“I used to work as a wedding vlogger," said Dinesh Kushwaha, who is from Meerut. “I took the night train and came to Kumbh to make blogs because this was an opportunity I did not want to miss," he added.
For many, these impromptu trips meant sleeping in makeshift camps and eating free food sponsored by the akhadas (religious sects).
Aman Srivastava, from Prayagraj, works at a technology company. He is also an influencer. His Instagram account has more than 380,000 followers and his Facebook account over 208,000.
“I have a team of six who take photos, make reels, update the social media sites and edit the content," said the 31-year-old, who rushes from one end of the city to another, on a bike with a handheld camera, to make the perfect reel. From the mela, he has made posts sponsored by a fintech firm, a four-wheeler showroom in the city, a local Italian restaurant, and a nearby temple. His pay ranges from ₹4,000 to ₹15,000 for a 50 second reel.
In fact, some influencers said that their compensation for Kumbh-related posts can fetch upto ₹30,000 a reel. This is a bonanza considering that normally, they mostly make wedding-related reels, getting paid only between ₹3,000 and ₹4,000.
Pay per snap
The stars at Kumbh are clearly the sages. Enveloped in a haze of smoke, they draw huge crowds. Akharas (religious sects) advertise the details of their leaders and followers often pay a donation. At times, you have to pay if you want to click a sadhu—about ₹40-50 for a snap.

Local tour companies are reaping the rewards. Some are selling holy dip packages to foreign tourists for ₹50,000- ₹100,000. The package includes a day’s stay in the Kumbh area and the opportunity to take the dip along with a team of sadhus. This writer spotted tour guides taking a bunch of foreign tourists to different akharas for a peek into their lives.
A man who identified himself as ‘Chela Arpan’ (chela means disciple) said he was an engineer who gave up the material world. Arpan joined a group of sadhus three-four years ago and now travels with the troupe, living off the alms and money that pilgrims offer. In these four years, he has lost more than 40 kg, he claimed. “I will not go back to that world—a world where I had a family and a regular earning," he added.
The reverence is so high that many pilgrims made a beeline before tattoo artist Sadnam Singh. From Himachal Pradesh, Singh was inking the names of sages for ₹400, in sector 20, where most of the akharas are centered.

SIP mantra
So, what are large corporations up to at the mela?
Not just companies, even India’s central bank made its presence felt. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has set up centres here to promote concepts around digital privacy and cyber security. Banks (such as Bank of Baroda) promoted digital payments. Life Insurance Corporation, meanwhile, talked about quick and safe online payment methods for insurance products.
“There has been a six times increase in advertising revenue this Kumbh versus the one in 2019 (Ardh Kumbh)," said Raj Mohanty, vice president at Crayons Advertising. “The cost in 2019 was ₹70,000-80,000 a hoarding; now it is going for ₹3.5- ₹5 lakh," he added.
If you take a walk down the prominent roads in the area, billboards, advertisements on tents, gates and watchtowers make quite a splash. Even the police posts have brands all over them.
“For the next two months, we have invested about ₹1 crore for branding. Changing rooms and police booths are visible areas," Mohit Sharma, senior vice president and business unit head, lighting & electricals, Eveready Industries, reasoned. He added that at Maha Kumbh, some companies are spending more than what they did during last Diwali.

The Sprout Research paper, cited earlier, stated that companies have collectively allocated a budget of over ₹3,000 crore for the mela.
While Sharda University’s posters were plastered on police posts, consumer goods firm Dabur set up Dabur ‘Dant Snan’ zones in prominent akharas. “These zones would help spread the message of oral hygiene among the lakhs of devotees at the Kumbh Mela using a unique automated toothpaste dispenser," the company said in response to Mint's queries.
You cannot keep the stock markets out. This writer saw street plays organized by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), promoting the idea of systematic investment plans (SIPs).
“With a vision to spread financial literacy and educate millions of pilgrims about the benefits of mutual funds, AMFI’s campaign integrates innovative on-ground activities to ensure deep engagement," the association said. This included a skit on conserving water.

Meanwhile, some boats ferrying passengers down the rivers carried ads from the State Bank of India (SBI) or Reliance Consumer Products’ beverage, Campa. Hospitality and consumer firm ITC put up booths that sold its snacks brand Bingo! and incense brand Mangaldeep.
These branding activities by India Inc come at a time when weak urban demand, delayed winters and inflationary pressures have impacted their business. The catchment area, be it for fast-moving consumer goods companies, or the financial sector, is rural India and Kumbh, apart from the well-heeled, has also attracted people from India’s heartland.
But not everyone in the region will make money. Some boatmen who work away from the Kumbh area feel deprived. “I have barely earned any money as no one wants to go down other parts of the rivers now," Dhanraj, a boatman, said.
Dhanraj is unaware that Mahavir Singh, like him, is just as worried. After the Kumbh ends, Singh will be able to calculate if his risks—the ₹4 crore that he invested in tents—were worth it.