Govt for declaring Sabarimala a National Pilgrim Centre
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Thiruvananthapuram: The State government will soon submit to Centre a memorandum seeking to declare the famous hill shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala as a National Pilgrim Centre and would also seek a special financial package for the on-going development projects.
The state government has already under taken various pilgrim amenity projects under the Sabarimala Master Plan and they are being implemented in a phased manner, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala told reporters after a meeting of officials of Devaswom departments from the southern states.
The memorandum would be submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon, he said.
On media reports that Modi would visit Sabarimala during the coming annual festival season, Chennithala said the state government has no information about it.
Devaswom departments administer the temples and the meeting was convened to take stock of arrangements to be carried out at the temple and surrounding places for the two-month long Mandala-Makaravillku festival starting on November 17.
As part of security and safety arrangements, more personnel from National Disaster Management team would be deployed at Pamba (base camp) and Sannidhanam (main temple) during the festival season, Chennithala said.
To monitor the movement of pilgrims from neighbouring states, the Control Centre to be opened in different states would be linked to the control centres functioning in Kottayam, Kochi and Cheganoor, he said.
