Accidents are happening due to a lack of awareness of the drivers about traveling on tirumala Ghat roads and unfit vehicles coming to the hill. The ghat roads leading from the Kaliyuga Vaikunthanadhu to the Saptagiris are claiming the lives of devotees. Accidents are happening due to a lack of awareness of the drivers about traveling on tirumala Ghat roads and unfit vehicles coming to the hill.
Devotees coming to tirumala will walk through Alipiri Walkway, and Srivari Mettu Path, while others will have to reach tirumala after a road journey of about 18 km in vehicles on Ghat road from Tirupati. This is known as the second ghat road. Although this ghat road does not have many twists and turns, there are occasional minor accidents due to faulty vehicles. This latter route has a high air pin slope between 11 km to 17 km, landslides during heavy rains along with occasional minor accidents due to lack of rock position. Recently ttd has come up with a permanent solution to this problem.
In 1961, ttd initiated the construction of the second ghat road, and the construction work continued till 1973. On september 3, 1974, the second ghat was made available to the devotees. While the devotees have to travel about 19 kilometers from tirumala to reach Alipiri, this first ghat road has 57 turns and 36 air pin bends (complicated thin turns) along the entire route. For nearly 30 years from the time of its construction, traffic to tirumala was only through this Ghat. The first ghat road was built by ttd in 1945 before independence.. but at that time there were no vehicles and only bullock carts were used for transportation.As the number of devotees is increasing every year, the number of road accidents in tirumala is increasing at the same rate. While ten thousand vehicles ply on the second ghat road, eight to nine thousand vehicles ply on the first ghat road, and around twenty thousand vehicles ply in Tirumala. As the crowd of devotees increases, the number of vehicles also increases. This often leads to vehicular accidents. ttd security officials have deployed patrolling vehicles on the Ghat road to prevent accidents and have enforced strict restrictions on travel time.
Although there is one way on the ghat road, in order to prevent accidents along with speed control, the ttd has imposed a ban on traveling from tirumala to tirupati for 48 minutes and from tirupati to tirumala for 28 minutes. If they arrive before the time, they will be banned from moving on the ghat road for three months. However, the authorities who initially enforced the new policy strictly, over time have reduced their attention to the implementation of these rules. Due to the lack of supervision or speed control, vehicles have been facing accidents on the Ghat road for the past few years. ttd officials have estimated that the accidents are often caused by careless driving, cell phone driving, lack of knowledge on the Ghat road, and excessive speed.
click and follow Indiaherald WhatsApp channel