PALANI ROPE CAR ACCIDENT - Is it Failure or Fault?!

Past few days, India news section has been packed with lot of hot items happening all over the country like Hyderabad bomb blast, Sanjay Dutt release, Salman khan's surrender, Kidnaps & Murders, Rail blockade to name few. One more incident adding to the list was the tragedy of Rope Car Accident killing 4 pilgrims in Palani Temple, Tamilnadu.

ROPE CAR, the name itself scares a bit out of me when I heard first time. We are not at the Ali baba age to have the Rope pulled by workers to move the car. I guess, its suppose to be called CABLE CAR as per mechanics. I am not sure what made them do name it as ROPE CAR.

Whatever it may be called, this recent snapping of the Rope cars killing four and injuring few more created a panic mode. It particularly crabbed my attention because I was at the same vicinity exactly 4 months ago and got to experience the exhaustive trip to the hill temple via much hyped ROPE CAR System. My family could have been victim. Lucky us!! My first impression, the whole system is a total failure to visitors satisfaction and its a big fiasco in the way its been handled by the officials.

Let me give a little background. The so called Rope car system of Palani temple was commissioned on Nov, 2004. Then TamilNadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa commissioned Rs 4-crore rope car system connecting the foot of Palani hill to the Arulmighu Dandayuthapani Swamy temple at the top.

Pilgrims to the hill top temple were either need to take a flight of 693 steps or one of the three winches. Each winch could carry only 34 persons and takes eight minutes to reach the top of the hill from the base station. On the other hand, the rope-car takes only 2.45 minutes to cover the distance of 323 metres over the green covered precipices.

It was considered to be first of the type to be installed in a temple vicinity. Its expected to carry thousands of people everyday with atleast 8-10 precipices(cars) running simultaneously at a time moving up and down to the hill top.

But the waiting period is a real a torcher during summer days without any proper built-in shelter with good Aeration of any sort. Below is the picture which I took during my visit 4 months ago to the hill temple.

Its been 2 and half years since the system is launched. There is still no proper shelter for the pilgrims to stand in queue whether you want to go express or ordinary. But you have to pay 10times(Rs.50) for the express compared to the ordinary(Rs.5).

Since everybody wants to go quicker not bothered about the charge, you see more people in express queue ending up taking more or less same time as the ordinary queue.

With kids, people really struggle badly in the hot summer without any good necessary facilities. It gets worse if you reach at the odd time of their schedule. They close down the Rope car for 2hour maintenance after every 2 hour of operations. Your wait time adds up if you hit that time period.

Few more pictures of the Rope car base station where it loads and unloads the passengers. I was warned by a worker for taking pictures and I don't know why?! There is no rocket science going on at the place. Now, I figure. Looks like there might have been problems which they didn't want get out.

It took us 3 and half hours to get to this place with just merely hundred people standing in front of us. They just combine both the Express and ordinary queue together at the end and hurrying it up forcing us get into the car. There are lot of ways it can go wrong.

I was so frustrated when I got there. I ended up arguing with the manager about the system and he never bothered to give a good answer. Inspite of all that, they have a back door open for VIP's or people who can treat them well. The system is so spoiled everybody wants to get a pie of it.

Here is few more view of the Rope car from the car itself.

It looks so scary looking down with rocks all over and I can't imagine somebody falling on it. Its sure to cause sudden death. Its sticks to my stomach. Its risky attempt to stand up when you are moving.

3 Important Points to note, (may be cause for the accident)

1. No proper maintenance of the system. If they take 2hours to maintain for every 2 hour of operation. They have better chance of figuring out any problem if they looked close enough than letting this tragedy happen. I am pretty sure, they just don't care.

2. If you do a quick math, within the last 2 years of this operation lot of money(atleast 50-60 lakhs) has been made which doesn't seem to be used well enough neither to upgrade the cars nor to built a good queuinng facility.

3. Too risky and not really a comfortable ride. I have traveled in many other Cable cars but this one very unstable. The way they hurry you up to get inside the car is not really encouraging. There are lot of ways it can go wrong. The car door won't shut off properly or the car didn't get on the rope firm enough as per my engineering eyes.

The accident is not merely a mechanic failure. There is a very good chance, its very well be a careless/reckless Human Fault costing 4 lives.