Temple town Srirangam which attracts pilgrims from various parts of the State and from elsewhere in the country is abuzz with movement of tourist vehicles.
The inflow of devotees to Srirangam peaks during the annual Vaikunta Ekadasi festival that falls in the Tamil month of ‘Marghazhi’.
Ahead of the commencement of the festival, the temple town is already witnessing heavy movement of ‘Ayyappa’ devotees before proceeding to Sabarimala this time as well.
With devotees swarming the temple town in different types of vehicles, traffic hold up for brief duration and indiscriminate parking along road sides is a daily phenomenon at Srirangam in the absence of dedicated parking lots for such vehicles.
Leading to Srirangam temple, the Amma Mandapam road dotted with residential apartments, commercial establishments and religious institutions remains a convenient spot for parking of tourist vehicles.
On many an occasion fleet of omni buses and private vans and cars carrying devotees from various places could be seen parked along the Amma Mandapam road shrinking existing road space thereby hampering free flow of vehicular movements.
Shrinking the broad road space further are the push cart vendors selling products making use of the heavy movement of Ayyappa devotees.
This has resulted in traffic hold ups for brief duration and vehicular congestion which could be witnessed more during the peak hour in the morning and in the evening hours.
The Srirangam bus stand and its vicinity witnesses frequent traffic snarls when tourists’ buses and other private vehicles approach the spot to enter into the roads leading inside the town.
But for a piece of empty site along the Salai road which is earmarked as a temporary parking lot for tourists buses, there is practically no other spot for parking of tourists vehicles.It is time for the authorised concerned to initiate long term measure to solve congestion in Srirangam and allocate proper place for parking of tourist vehicles, says Saravanan, a Congress member.
