Post verdict, police moot restricting no. of visitors to Sabarimala
KP.Saikiran@timesgroup.com
Thiruvananthapuram: 30.09.2018
The Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all ages to visit the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala has triggered a flurry of activity. With the pilgrimage season set to begin on November 17, authorities have an uphill task to set up facilities for women pilgrims.
Police have mooted restricting the number of pilgrims to the hill shrine even as other departments are looking at setting up woman-friendly facilities.
Chief secretary Tom Jose is likely to convene a high-level meeting next week to discuss modifications that are to be made to the Sabarimala master plan.
The police top brass held a meeting on Saturday to devise strategies to control the crowd. A point strongly suggested was to restrict the number of devotees to Sabarimala to 80,000 to one lakh a day, using the police’s digital queue system. It was also suggested that a limited number of on-the-spot tickets, too could be issued.
Restricting visitors alone would not solve the problem, it was pointed out in the meeting. Creating separate queues for men and women would be a larger problem.
“The police officers on duty at Pathinettaampadi (the 18 steps leading to the temple) would change duty every 15 minutes as they have to pull people up to make the queue move faster. When women devotees come as a separate line, women officers will have to do the job, which is physically demanding. If the queues of men and women are given alternate windows to climb the steps every 15 minutes, officers on the steps, too, will have be changed accordingly,” a senior officer said.
CHANGE IN MASTER PLAN
KP.Saikiran@timesgroup.com
Thiruvananthapuram: 30.09.2018
The Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all ages to visit the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala has triggered a flurry of activity. With the pilgrimage season set to begin on November 17, authorities have an uphill task to set up facilities for women pilgrims.
Police have mooted restricting the number of pilgrims to the hill shrine even as other departments are looking at setting up woman-friendly facilities.
Chief secretary Tom Jose is likely to convene a high-level meeting next week to discuss modifications that are to be made to the Sabarimala master plan.
The police top brass held a meeting on Saturday to devise strategies to control the crowd. A point strongly suggested was to restrict the number of devotees to Sabarimala to 80,000 to one lakh a day, using the police’s digital queue system. It was also suggested that a limited number of on-the-spot tickets, too could be issued.
Restricting visitors alone would not solve the problem, it was pointed out in the meeting. Creating separate queues for men and women would be a larger problem.
“The police officers on duty at Pathinettaampadi (the 18 steps leading to the temple) would change duty every 15 minutes as they have to pull people up to make the queue move faster. When women devotees come as a separate line, women officers will have to do the job, which is physically demanding. If the queues of men and women are given alternate windows to climb the steps every 15 minutes, officers on the steps, too, will have be changed accordingly,” a senior officer said.
CHANGE IN MASTER PLAN
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