More than a decade after the project got its nod in 2010, the trial run of the rope car facility connecting the foot and the Sri Lakshminarasimhar temple on the hillock in Sholinghur near Ranipet will be held on April 14.
Accompanied by Collector D. Bhaskara Pandian, the Minister for Handlooms & Textiles, R. Gandhi, will travel in one of the cars as part of the trial run on Thursday. The ₹8.26 crore facility will be opened next month to benefit devotees during summer vacation.
The work for the rope car was started only in 2017.
“Thursday’s trial will be the first exercise where actual cabins of the rope car will be used. Earlier, many trials were done using dummy cabins with more weight on it to check its efficiency,” M. Jaya, Assistant Commissioner, HR&CE (Ranipet), told The Hindu.
Built under the Temple Fund of the department, the new rope car, which is 430 metres long, has a total of eight cabins with four cabins each on both ends of the facility. Each cabin can carry four persons at a time. The facility has been built at a height of 700 feet from the foot on the rear side of the hillock. At present, visitors have to walk on the 1,306 steps to reach the hillock shrine.
With the rope car accident in Jharkhand a few days ago, officials said that adequate safety measures have been taken in the new facility. Primarily, the new rope car will be operated by 250 watt of high tension (HT) line. As an alternative, the new facility has also been connected with diesel run generators and battery operated equipment as power backup during emergencies. A nominal fee of ₹50 per person will be charged to travel in the new facility as maintenance charges.
At present, the centuries-old temple attracts, on an average, 3,000 visitors during weekends. During Karthigai Deepam festival, the temple witnesses over 5,000 footfalls every day. Most of the visitors are from Chennai, Kancheepuram, Bengaluru, Mysore, Chittor, Nellore, Hyderabad and Visakapattanam.
Officials said the ₹6 crore-rope car facility at Sri Rathnagiriswarar temple in Ayyarmalai in Karur is also ready to open with a trial that will be held on April 16. Further, similar rope car facilities will be coming up in temple towns like Tirutani, Thirukazhukundram, Tiruchengode and Rock Fort temple (Tiruchi) where feasibility study is being done by the HR&CE Department, officials said.
