SABARIMALA: Devaswom and Health Minister V S Sivakumar has said that measures would be taken to implement Kunnar dam water storage capacity augmentation project, with an objective of ensuring sufficient potable water availability even during summer. Addressing mediapersons at Devaswom Guest House here on Sunday, the minister said the Union Forest and Environment Department had given nod for the project.
“On completion, the storage capacity of the dam will go up to 60 lakh litres from the present 20 lakh litres,” he said. A sum of `4 crore is estimated for the project implementation, the minister said.
Sewage Treatment Plant
Sivakumar said the sewage treatment plant at Sannidhanam would be operational before the beginning of the coming pilgrimage season in November. The `22-crore project will resolve the pollution problems in Pampa to an extend, he said.
Three queue complexes
Three queue complexes, each having a capacity to accommodate 3,000 pilgrims at a time, will be opened to the pilgrims during the coming season. The cost of each queue complex, located between Marakottam and Saramkuthi, will be around `1.50 crore,
Devotees Throng Sabarimala Temple
Unprecedented rush of devotees was witnessed at the Lord Ayyappa temple to offer worship on the first day of the Malayalam New Year on Sunday.
At 5 am, when the Sreekovil of the temple was opened for darsan, there was a long queue of pilgrims at Sopanam, fly-over, Lower Thirumuttam and Nadapandal.
The devotees had to stand in queue for four to five hours for darsan. Among those who offered worship at the shrine included, Devaswom and Health Minister V Sivakumar, Travancore Devaswom board members Subhash Vasu and P K Kumaran, Devaswom Department secretary K R Jyothilal, devaswom commissioner P Venugopal and special commissioner K Babu.
Deployment of inadequate number of police personnel caused severe hardships for the pilgrims.
Instead of posting 240 police personnel at Sanidhanam for controlling the crowd during the rush day of Malayalam New Year month of Chingam, only 60 were posted for duty.