THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Health and Devaswom Minister V S Sivakumar has said that the allegations levelled by the BJP on the development of Sabarimala hill shrine were baseless.
The minister said in a statement here on Sunday that Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and he had handed representations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister of Environment and Forests Prakash Javadekar to declare Sabarimala as a national pilgrim centre. Though the Union Forests Minister agreed to part with more forest land for development works, nothing materialised.
On the allegations against the master plan works, the minister said the plan was implemented after the present UDF Government came to power. Till then, development works at the shrine were funded by the the Travancore Devaswom Board. The UDF Government earmarked Rs 65 crore in its budgets for infrastructure development at the hill shrine. Works worth Rs 70 crore were executed this season and Rs 50 crore was sanctioned for the works to be completed before the next pilgrimage season.
The minister said the infrastructure and pilgrim facilities launched this year is the biggest-ever in the history of the temple.
They include the waste treatment plant at Sannidhanam (Rs 22.87 crore), six queue complexes between Marakoottam and Saramkuthi, two water storage tanks with 20-lakh litre capacity, toilet blocks near Malikappuram (Rs 2.05 crore) and at Pampa (Rs 1.87 crore), electrification using areal bundled cables (Rs 4.35 crore), storage facility at Pampa (Rs 1.45 crore), restaurant block and annadanam block (Rs 3.78 crore each).
The government spent Rs 523 core for the development of the roads leading to Sabarimala. Rs 95.5 core was sanctioned in six districts this year. Besides, administrative sanction was given for developing 11 roads in Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts linked with the pilgrimage. These roads are built with three-year guarantee. The Pampa-Chalakkayam road was renovated with BMC technology. A new bridge at a cost of Rs 7 core was built at Kanamala to ease the traffic on the Erumely-Pampa route.
