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| Amarnath cave shrine to go AC | | Two month long pilgrimage concludes today | |
Govind Chouhan
Jammu | Aug 27
The Amarnath Shrine Board is planning to refrigerate the holy Amarnath cave to prevent the self formed Ice Lingam from melting and the work was expected to start soon and the pilgrims are likely to pay obscene at the air conditioned cave shrine next year.
According to sources, the senior officers of the Shrine Board after facing problems of early melting of the Ice Lingam had sought opinion of some experts of the private companies and had spent lakhs of rupees as consultation charges.
According to sources the Board is against use of diesel sets as will create pollution in the area that is most harmful for the atmosphere of the cave
According to sources, the officials of the Shrine Board are planning to run the AC’s with electricity and they also plan to start a Micro Hydro Power Project in the river that flows under the cave.
It may be recalled that over the past two years rising temperature has caused the 12-foot-tall stalagmite Lingam to melt. This year, much to the dismay of pilgrims, the stalagmite melted even before the Amaranth yatra was officially launched in early July.
According to sources the cooling panels will be fitted into a frame which will be installed inside the cave. This will then help to create an invisible curtain of cold air in front of the Lingam, and will prevent both the heat from outside and also the body heat of the pilgrims from reaching it.
According to sources these cooling panels would not act as blowers as these would consist only of rods and every precaution will be made that air does not circulate inside as that might prove harmful.
According to sources the electricity will be needed to operate the cooling panels and this will be generated from micro-hydro electric plant along the Amravati River, which flows close to the cave.
The conventional diesel generators are much too heavy and cannot be operationalized in the cave especially since this region becomes completely inaccessible during the winter months
According to sources the cost of installing the cooling panels will be over Rs 5 lakhs while the cost of putting up a compressor to generate electricity will be over Rs 40 lakhs. For this purpose the Board authorities are tying up with the Blue Star and Voltas and hope to finalize the contract with the company shortly. The technology for the cooling process will be put together by IIT Mumbai.
When contacted, Dr Arun Kumar, CEO of the Amaranth Shrine Board and also the Governor’s Principal Secretary denied making any comments adding that it was a rum- our.
It is worth while to mention here that last year’s controversy over installation of a ‘fake Lingam’ from the ice brought from outside resulted in ordering of a judicial inquiry. This inquiry gave a clean chit to the administration but a PIL was also filed in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, which directed that the natural process should not be interfered with.
The record number of three lakh yatris who had visited the cave this year had to return disappointed because they did not get a "darshan" of the Lingam. "This will not happen once we harness science to preserve the lingam’, the experts say.
This will be for the third time in more than 150-year history of the pilgrimage that the pilgrimage duration was extended for two months and nearly four lakh pilgrims had the darshan of the holy Ice Lingam at the cave shrine located at an altitude of 12700 feet above the sea level.
According to reports at least 31 pilgrims from different parts of the country died during pilgrimage this year. All these deaths were natural and most of these due to heart attack and breathing problems.
Barring two incidents of grenade explosions, one each at Baltal and Pahalgam, the yatra passed off peaceful this year. One person died and 16, most of them locals, got injured in an explosion at the Baltal base camp on July 17, while at least 10 persons were injured in an explosion at Pahalgam on July 21.
Here it is to be mention that on June 9 last the Shiv Lingam was reportedly 12 feet high but the prevailing warm weather led to its melting, and by June 29 it was less than a feet.
Even during the peak of militancy in 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993 it saw a steady rise in the number of pilgrims from 15,7000 to 36,007.
After that, there had a heavy increase in arrival of pilgrims to Amarnath. As many as 67,000 visited the Cave Shrine in 1994, 98,000 in 1995 and the number went up to 4.12 lakh in 2005.
The movement of yatris on the two trekking routes to the cave has been disrupted several times due to bad weather since the beginning of yatra last month.
The officials claim the number of pilgrims who visited the shrine during the past one month was equal to the number that visited in the corresponding period during the previous years.
However, sources claimed there were lesser number pilgrims this year in the wake of reports of shrinking of the Holy Ice Lingam in the beginning of the yatra this year due to various factors, including the global warming, increased number of pilgrims resulting in the generation of heat inside the cave and frequent landings of helicopters at the helipad close to the cave.
The two-month-long yatra in the upper reaches of Pahalgam is scheduled to conclude today on August 28 on Shrawan Poornima coinciding with Raksha Bandhan.
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