SABARIMALA: Only 13 days are left for the new Sabarimala pilgrimage season to begin. Unfortunately, crores of devotees coming for a darsan of Lord Ayyappa are sure to be left high and dry. The reason? The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), the custodian of the hill shrine, has failed to provide even the basic facilities free of cost to the pilgrims, three-fourths of whom fall in the below-poverty-line category.
Inadequate supply of free food and medicated potable water, absence of enough free-of-charge facilities like toilets, insufficient resting place and improper use of queue complexes are some of the realities the six to seven lakh pilgrims who reach the hill shrine daily during the two-month-long pilgrimage season have been facing. Fleecing by hoteliers adds to their worry. Though the state exchequer gets billions of rupees every year as revenue, various government departments find it as an opportunity to levy crores of rupees in lieu of the services offered to the pilgrims.
The TDB claims the free-food distribution facility behind the Malikappuram Temple can accommodate 3,000 pilgrims at a time, but it can cater to only two lakh pilgrims a day, forcing the rest two-thirds to depend mostly on hotels. As hoteliers, numbering a dozen at Sannidhanam, pay about Rs 10 crore as auction money a year to the TDB, they levy exorbitant rates on food items.Lakhs are also collected from the contractors who maintain the toilets during a season.
ABASS flays govt
The Akhila Bharatha Ayyappa Seva Sangham (ABASS) has flayed the government and the TDB for the situation. ABASS vice-president D Vijayakumar said the Centre should declare Sabarimala as a national pilgrim centre.