As the India’s tallest national flag fiasco refuses to die down, tough days for iconic Pahari Mandir of the capital seem not to have gotten over yet. In the eyes of the experts, the structure made up of one of the oldest rocks of geological annals is too frail to sustain the continuing activities in the name of beautification and devotee amenities.
Geologists and architecture specialists say the plateau constitutes of Khondalite rock, which is among the oldest of the world and thus highly fragile and vulnerable in nature.
“Khondalite is a foliated metamorphic rock ranging anywhere 400 to 600 million years old. The Pahari is in highly weathered state right now just like the Sun Temple of Odisha which was built out of this rock. I have submitted a report to the Pahari Mandir Vikas Samiti and the district administration cautioning them against going for any kind of human interference but of no use. I was labeled as obstructionist,” said Nitish Priyadarshi, a noted geologist and environmental activist.
Regardless of the facts about the age of the structure, the Samiti along with the administration went ahead with its programme and invited destruction to natural vegetation for constructing an alternate route for devotees, building concrete stairs by burying tree roots and installing the country’s tallest flag post by drilling the already delicate rock structure.
“All these acts are indiscriminate. Facts on the table before them have not been taken into consideration. It seems they are in a hurry and wanted to rush for so-called beautification which was uncalled for. The structure should not have been touched upon at the first place and instead be declared as heritage site. Considering the steep slope of the plateau and frequency of tremors coming in the region, God forbid, any big disaster may hit the residents,” apprehended Priyadarshi.
Unscientific intervention at Pahari started a couple of years back when the district administration and Samiti got sanctioned Rs41 lakh for sheds over stairs leading to the temple from the Tourism Department. later, even larger project of Rs6-8 crore brought in for constructing boundary walls, alternate ramp, sheds, widening of stairs covering trees and putting in grills up to the temple top.
latest in this line is the installation of the heavy metal poll for the country's tallest Tricolour which may have caused great deal of damage to the already weekend plateau base.
“A team of young architects of BIT (Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra) was involved which presented a design for the modification plan. But later architects from Gujarat found several loopholes in the plan. Considering the state of the rock and their overambitious plan, we retracted ourselves,” said Manjari Chakraborty, dead of Architecture Department of the BIT, Mesra.
More worryingly, the plateau has witnessed two major landslides in no time. Nonetheless the management of the temple, which is at present huffing and puffing to bring down the national flag flying half-mast for about a week now, still believes that netting can do the things for them.
“The exercises are being done to make the destination more comfortable and popular for the visitors. Plan is to put wired net around the ramp where soil is being dig so that landslide can be prevented. Some trees have been cut but more would be planted as well,” said Mukesh Agarwal of the Samiti.
However, Nitish Priyadarshi refused to buy the argument, saying only planting more and more trees on the high natural structure can sustain it for longer and any human intervention in the form of defragmentation of original structure would push the Pahari nearer to destruction.