The Hindu Business Line : Forestland handed over for Sabarimala development project

THE Chief Minister, Mr Oommen Chandy, at a function held in Pampa on Wednesday, formally handed over the 12.65 hectares of forestland in the Periyar Tiger Reserve to the Travancore Devaswom Board for creating infrastructure facilities for the Sabarimala pilgrims.

With this, the long pending demand for the forestland has been fulfilled, Mr Raman Nair, President of TDB, told Business Line. This land at Marakoottam on the trekking path from Pampa to Sannidhanam in the Neelimala hills would be developed without disturbing the sanctity of the region, he said. The proposed `queue complex' to be created here would regulate the movement of devotees to the Sannidhanam.

Around 50,000 pilgrims can be accommodated here at a time. It would be in compartments where adequate health care facilities including cardiology units having eight beds, oxygen parlours, first aid centres, facilities for drinking water and snacks, toilets etc, would be available.

He said that the health facilities provided during the pilgrimage season in the past were quite inadequate. Hence, the Board is thinking of creating adequate infrastructure for providing medical assistance to the pilgrims on the lines it is provided at Tirupati, he said. In addition, the Rs 16-crore project sanctioned by the Centre under the National River Conservation Programme would also be taken up along with the proposed projects, he said. Similar facilities would be created enroute to Sabarimala via Uppupara depending on the number of devotees arriving through this trekking path, he said.

The Chief Minister also inaugurated a 60 KV sub-station to provide permanent power supply to the forest shrine. In the absence of permanent connection, the Board has been paying Rs 14 per unit of power supplied. Thus, the TDB had last season paid Rs 3.5 crore towards power cost, he said.

For setting up the sub-station near Pampa, two acres of land was allotted to the KSEB besides paying Rs 70 lakh 10 year ago by the Board. An estimated 3.5 crore devotees trek every year to the shrine.

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