A new three-storey pilgrim centre with modern amenities was opened at Nilackal, near Pampa, on Friday. The pilgrim centre, inaugurated by Minister for Devaswom Kadakampally Surendran, was built at a cost of ₹4.5crore.
In his inaugural address, the Minister said the setting up of the pilgrim centre was as a major step towards converting Nilackal into the main base camp of Sabarimala pilgrims. The State government had given top priority to extend every possible basic facility to the scores of pilgrims coming from different parts of the country to Sabarimala every year.
The government had also sanctioned funds to the tune of ₹12 crore to₹18 crore each for developing as many as 37 transit camps for pilgrims from different parts of the State. All the transit camps would be completed in the next two years, he said.
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The Minister said the number of pilgrims visiting Sabarimala was on the rise on a daily basis over the past 25 days. He said more vehicle parking lots would be prepared at Nilackal with a view to stopping all private vehicles there during the rush days in the last lap of the pilgrim season. The KSRTC would make necessary arrangements to operate more chain services to transport the pilgrims between Nilackal and Pampa.
A. Padmakumar, TDB president, presided over the function.
S. Sirijagan, chairman of the high-power committee for implementation of the Sabarimala master plan; Raju Abraham, MLA; and TDB member K. Raghavan, among others, spoke.
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