ABSTRACT
The Kumbh Mela is considered the world’s largest mass gathering event (MGE). It represents a unique anthropogenicburden on the river ecosystem and may confer antimicrobial resistance among microbial communities. The present studyexplains the characterization of microbial isolates associated with Godavari River under the advent of the mass bathingevent using culture dependent approach. The isolates were identified by sequencing of 16S rRNA gene and ITS region.Further, the isolates were screened for antibiotic susceptibility against 22 antibiotics using disc diffusion method. A total of63 bacterial and 21 fungal isolates were isolated under the temporal variation of the event. Kocuria and Staphylococcuswere the most prevalent bacterial genera in the samples collected before and during the event, while Meyerozyma andCandida predominate among fungal communities. A group of antibiotics impeding the bacterial protein synthesis werefound to be most effective against C67% of bacterial isolates. However, C37–67% of isolates could escape the action ofinhibitors of bacterial cell wall synthesis. Moreover, bacterial isolates belonging to genera Acinetobacter, Corynebacteriumand Brevibacterium showed higher resistance towards the antibiotics. Observations from the current study suggest likelymicrobial taxa as targets to mitigate the waterborne infections during the MGE.