COIMBATORE: With deaths of devotees continuing in Velliangiri, the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department (HR&CE) has sought deployment of additional police personnel to regulate and screen devotees.
A week ago, the Coimbatore forest division, with the help of Isha yoga centre, set up a medical camp at the fourth hill a week ago. Two doctors will be stationed in the centre on shift basis and they will check the blood pressure and provide emergency care if devotees fall sick.
The health department also set up a camp staffed by a doctor and three nurses at foothill. Further, officials of HR & CE department are making regular announcements advising people with health issues to avoid trekking.
Despite all these measures, a 60-year-old man died of cardiac arrest on Saturday, the sixth in the last one and half months.
A HRCE official said “We are allowing devotees only after getting undertakings (declaration) mentioning that they are aware of the past death incidents in the hill and trekking is difficult and they have no health issues including heart ailments. However, many people manage to skip this. From Tuesday, we will streamline the devotees queue and ensure undertaking is obtained from every devotee.”
“To ensure this, we have sought additional police strength to manage the crowd and approached the SP. We have also requested the block development officer of the Thondamuthur Panchayat to deploy additional sanitary staff to clear the waste as the existing 15 staff appointed by us is not enough. We have also sought the Boluvampatti Panchayat to provide drinking water supply to fill in our tanks,” said the official.
According to forest department sources, more than 1.40 lakh devotees had trekked the Velliangiri hill till Sunday since February 9 when the hills was opened for trekking.