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"All vehicles entering the Nilgiris and Kodaikanal between May 7 and June 30 must obtain an e-pass to help the district administration collect data on the number and type of vehicles entering the hill stations during summer," a division bench of Justices N Sathish Kumar and D Bharatha Chakravarthy said on Monday.
The court, however, made it clear that there shall be no cap on the issuance of e-passes and that residents must be exempted.
It passed the order appalled over a status report filed by the state govt which submitted that about 20,000 vehicles enter the Nilgiris every day.
"The district administration could explore the possibility of linking an online payment gateway to the e-pass system so that piling up of vehicles can be avoided in the check posts," the judges said.
IIM-B, IIT-M to study ghat roads
When the plea came up for hearing on Monday, TN advocate-general P S Raman submitted that such data collected would be useful to IIM Bangalore and IIT Madras which have been roped in to carry out scientific studies to fix the carrying capacity of the ghat roads.
According to a status report filed by the state, during the non-season period about 1,150 cars, 118 vans, 60 buses, and 674 two-wheelers enter the Nilgiris every day.
During the tourist season, 11,509 cars, 1,341 vans, 637 buses, and 6,524 two-wheelers enter the hill station, the report said.
As to the accommodation that has legal permits for the visiting tourists, the report said, the Nilgiris could accommodate about 20,000 tourists, which includes guest houses maintained by PWD, TTDC, horticulture, and forest departments.
To address the issue of parking spaces for vehicles, the district administration has identified additional temporary parking spaces to accommodate tourist vehicles during peak season, the report said.
At present, there are 12 designated parking spaces, the state added.
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