Thousands stranded in gridlock

Severe traffic congestion along the Nilackal-Pampa stretch left thousands of Sabarimala pilgrims, including children and elderly women, stranded for hours on Sunday.

Pilgrims block road over buses

A prolonged wait for buses at Pampa triggered a major protest when pilgrims blocked the road over failure to arrange adequate transport after darshan.

Conditions in the gridlock

Many devotees remained in vehicles for hours before reaching Pampa, often without access to food or drinking water. Those who completed darshan also faced long waits for buses.

Officials blame road works and buses

Officials attributed the chaos to ongoing road works along the Nilackal-Pampa stretch and an inadequate number of Kerala State Road Transport Corporation buses to handle the pilgrim rush.

Minister flags crowd management gaps

Devaswom Minister K. Muraleedharan flagged gaps in crowd management and coordination, asking the Travancore Devaswom Board to exercise extra caution until October twenty-second.

Heavy bookings and police deployment

Virtual queue bookings for the first three days crossed one point five lakh. Police doubled deployment to eight hundred personnel, with five hundred already at Sannidhanam.

Rush driven by five holidays

The rush was driven by five consecutive holidays, including the weekend and Navaratri holidays. The temple closes October twenty-second after monthly rituals.

Concerns ahead of Mandalam season

With the forty-one-day Mandalam pilgrimage season scheduled to begin next month, officials warned that delays in completing road repairs could cause chaos during the annual season.

“It is only a few weeks before the annual pilgrimage season begins, but several public infrastructure works, including road repairs, are already lagging behind.”