Kochi: A bumpy ride awaits tens of thousands of pilgrims to Sabarimala this season with the main sections of the Main Central Road in a dilapidated condition and the annual maintenance of roads to the hill shrine reaching nowhere. Travancore Devaswom Board president Prayar Gopalakrishnan said he would ask executive engineers to prepare a list of sections requiring immediate maintenance and submit a request to the chief minister and the works minister to make them motorable on a war-footing.
The most badly-damaged is Chengannur-Thiruvalla stretch used by inter-state pilgrims to reach Pandalam Palace and temple. Top officials of the Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP), which is carrying out a multi-crore development work in the Chengannur-Muvattupuzha section, admit the road repair would be far from over before the pilgrim season commences on November 15.
“We can’t force contractors to finish the repair works in the particular section as the agreement is for three years which would end only on September 2017. The most affected stretch is the Changanassery-Thiruvalla which includes three bridges. We’ll try to make it at least motorable,” said a senior KSTP official. Though the PWD got Rs 89-crore for annual maintenance of Sabarimala roads, the works have reached nowhere.
“They held a meet in Sabarimala and had doled out promises. But repairs are yet to begin on a majority of these roads, including the 40-km Pampa-Pathanamthitta section and couldn’t be completed in the remaining one month. This proves the meet was held as an eyewash,” said Bhargava Ram, Hindu Aikya Vedi leader. High Court had ordered the PWD in 2013 to complete annual maintenance before October end.
