Ahead of Gangasagar Mela, the State Irrigation Department is importing out the cleaning of the Muriganga River using state-of-the-art machinery to enable round-the-clock ferrying of pilgrims to Gangasagar Mela and thereby reduce the travel time. The Irrigation Minister of Bengal said that, following the instruction of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, his department has taken up cleaning in a scientific and adequate manner. The travel time will be less by at least three hours now and the solution will be long-term, according to a minister of the department, unlike earlier, when the river needed to be cleaned every year before the annual fair.