MANNANUR: The three-day Saileswaram jatara, annually held at the Lingamayya temple deep inside the Nallamala forest, has attracted nearly four lakh visitors this year, according to unofficial estimates by police deployed near the temple.
Such has been the rush this year that the Nagarkurnool district administration had to deploy some 1,000 police officers for crowd control and to manage the heavy traffic ever since the jatara started this year on April 15th.
The event held on the full moon day in the Telugu month of Phalguna (April 16) traditionally draws members of the local Chenchu tribe. However, over the past 15 years or so, it has begun to attract a more diverse crowd from different parts of the state, with lakhs now thronging the temple during the three days of festivities.
The state forest department, with the intention of protecting the Amrabad Tiger Reserve in which the temple is located, has arranged for volunteers from the local Chenchu youth to keep the forest clean of the garbage generated by visitors and devotees. The volunteers will also help with the parking of vehicles - two-wheelers, cars, mini as well as full-sized buses - in clearings in the forest near a Chenchu hamlet, from where pilgrims and visitors will trek down-hill into the gorge to reach the temple.
As visitors increase, so does the woes of transport. Huge traffic jams were to be seen on the forest road that leads to the temple area from the Hyderabad-Srisailam Highway.
Nearly everyone on the road, as well as the vehicles, were coated in layers of red soil from the clouds of dust being thrown up by the vehicles. In some parts along the forest road, trees in an area up to around 200 metres along the road were covered in a thick layer of dust.
The TSRTC had also arranged for buses from different parts of Nagarkurnool district for the jatara. Two buses broke down in the middle of the forest, leading to long traffic snarls with vehicles lining up for more than a kilometre on either direction where the buses broke down.
“It has become nearly impossible to control the number of visitors what with tremendous political pressure to allow everyone who wants to go in, to do so in their own vehicles,” said a forest department staffer posted at the Farhabad gate, the entry point to the nearly 15 km long forest road that leads to the temple.
The real worry of the officials is not just the swelling number of people visiting the Lingamayya temple in the core area of the Amrabad Tiger Reserve, but also the potential for a disaster at the temple itself which is located in a deep gorge. The trek from the vehicle parking area to the temple is a 1.5 km long walk downhill over a path strewn with rocks, and an even harder steep climb back. While this does not deter most visitors, the real fear is that an accident could occur with people crushing each other in a crowd while trying to reach the temple.
“We are very worried over a potential stampede like situation. If something like that happens, then even rescue operations are going to be so hard, what with the temple located deep down in a valley and inside a gorge,” a forest department official said.
