PALANI
With the bhoomi puja on the first rope car ground station campus, work on installation of the ultra modern second rope car facility commenced here on Monday. A team of priests, led by Amirthalingam, performed a special yagam and vaasthu puja to mark the beginning of the work.
The project will be implemented by the engineering division of Shriram Group at an estimated cost of ₹73 crore with technology, equipment and systems offered by France-based Poma SA. The firm plans to complete the work in 18 months.
The additional facility, comprising eight cars, can transport around 1,200 persons to the hill temple in an hour, whereas the first rope car transports just 200 devotees in an hour. It will reach the hill station in two and a half minutes. Each car can accommodate 10 persons. The project work includes designing, manufacturing, supplying, erecting, testing and commissioning the rope car.
The firm would operate and maintain the facility for the next five years, said Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Joint Commissioner R. Selvaraj.
The rope car station would be established on the outer prakaram of the hill temple. With a sharp increase in the number of devotees visiting the hill temple, installation of the second rope car facility was necessitated, he added.
A field survey for installing the second rope car facility began at Sri Dhandayuthapaniswamy Hill Temple in 2017. Earlier in 2009, officials of HR&CE and Public Works departments conducted a study, and prepared a ₹22-crore plan. Then the project estimate was revised, but it did not take off. The project was finally announced in the Assembly session during 2012-13.
The first rope car was commissioned on November 3, 2004, adopting mono-cable detachable grip ropeway system at a cost of ₹3.88 crore. Initially, 24 cabins were attached to the rope to carry 800 devotees in an hour. After a rope car disaster in 2007, the temple administration abandoned it and shifted to mono-cable fixed grip jig back ropeway system in September 2008, reducing the number of cabins to eight.
These cabins were permanently attached to the cable and the number of travellers in a car per trip too was reduced. The first rope car has been making 150 trips a day, transporting 3,150 persons.
