NILGIRIS: New restrictions on the number of tourist vehicles that will be allowed into the Nilgiris and Kodaikanal will come into effect from Tuesday.
According to a recent order of the Madras High Court, 6,000 vehicles will be allowed to enter the Nilgiris during weekdays and 8,000 vehicles during weekends. Similarly, 4,000 vehicles per day on weekdays and 6,000 per day on weekends will be allowed to enter Kodaikanal in Dindigul distict.
The Nilgiris district administration has issued an awareness poster directing the tourists to apply for the E-pass at https://epass.tnega.org.
The district administration is setting up a boom barrier at Kallar checkpost near Mettupalayam to check for e-pass as well as green tax that is collected through FASTag (green tax is being collected by the district administration for each vehicle that enters the district). The system is expected to be ready soon.
Based on the HC order, the Nilgiris district administration is carrying out the work at Kallar check post, which is the main entry point to the hills. There are 14 entry points to the Nilgiris.
“We have completed civil works, and the remaining work, including inspection by a technical team, will be completed in a week. A private company which has installed similar boom barriers at Doddabetta has installed this one too .
This system will be helpful for us to reduce the manual work of checking the vehicle numbers, and the vehicles can avoid standing in a long queue at the check post,” said HR Kausik, additional collector, Nilgiris.
“We are implementing the system at Kallar on a pilot basis,” the officer added.