A controversy is brewing over extending the number of festival days at Mangladevi Temple, located at an altitude of 4,000 ft above mean sea level in Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR).
While the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) is campaigning to extend the festival days to 35 from the existing one-day annual event, the Kerala Forest Department has opposed it, citing environmental concerns.
A. Padmakumar, TDB president, said the 500-year-old temple would be restored to its its past glory. A committee, Mangaladevi Sahaya Samiti, was constituted last week with representatives of Kannaki Trust, Tamil Nadu and senior functionaries of the TDB as its members. The TDB will spend ₹3 crore required for the temple renovation, he said.
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Mr. Padmakumar said the temple festival days should be extended to at least 35 days covering Navaratri, Thrikkarthika, Sivaratri, Pathamudayam and Chitrapournami days. Currently, it’s open to devotees on Chithrapournami day, which falls in April or May.
One has to trek or travel by jeep around 15 km through forest route and high-altitude grassland to reach the temple.
This year on April 30, the festival day, 17,664 devotees from Kerala and Tamil Nadu visited the temple. On the day, 906 trips were operated by jeeps to ferry devotees, according to an estimate by Forest officials.
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According to Forest officials, the practice of permitting devotees to use the trekking path and offer prayers at the temple began long ago. Though it’s still continuing, it cannot be extended any further as it would upset the forest environments, said Georgi P. Mathachan, Field Director, PTR.
The temple precincts and the trekking path, which form part of the core area of PTR, were marked as the buffer zone in the management plan of the reserve for the benefit of devotees. If notified as core area, all movement along the area, including the pilgrimage, will be affected, he said.
Though the TDB had been demanding the extension of festival days and renovation of the temple, there has not been any formal communication in this regard, said Mr. Mathachan.
On the biodiversity of the region, Mr. Mathachan said all wild animals found in the Thekkady forest, including elephants, gaur, tiger and sloth bear, were present on the Mangaladevi premises too.
The consumption of stale food, discarded by devotees, by wild animals is one of the hazards in the region, said a study carried out by the department. Many pilgrims tend to access the temple by moving through the grassland upsetting the breeding habitats of bird species such as Pipits and Larks, it said.
Management of plastic waste was another concern. This year plastic waste was found in the dung of elephants, the report pointed out.