Ooty And Kodaikanal : The Summer E-Pass Conundrum

The summer months have alwaysbeen a welcoming event for tourists, all over India especially to circumvent the heat of the plains. Families and friends often utilise the summer school and college breaks to rest and rejuvenate and spend time away from hometown, away from the sweltering heat, away from maddening crowds and what suits most tourist is a get away to the hills.

Tourists plan months in advance to spend time in the hills. Children look forward to such trips with excitement and the thought of a holiday, acts as an incentive to do well and prepare for the exams, and in the end look forward for an eventful holiday.

This year, the Madras High Court has dampened the spirit of enjoying holidays when proceeding to the hills in Tamilnadu. Two of the most popular tourist destinations comes with a caveat i.e. a person can only enter these tourist destination with an e-pass, making it a cumbersome holiday for a tourist. The duration of the tourist passes is applicable for anyone travelling to these hill stations from 07-May-2024 till 30-Jun-2024, which sees the highest footfall. This exercise is being done to maintain ecological balance and prevent haphazard movement and maintain a balance between man animal conflicts as the roads passes through elephant and tiger corridors as well.  Further to ensure that hill stations are not crowed and do not disturb the locals.

Why did the Madras High Court decide to impose e-passes for Ooty and Kodaikanal?

To start with there were concerns of tourist ingress and exgress to these hill stations, without any control mechanism in place. With no data available traversing the ghat roads with impunity had to necessary come with its woes. Thus, to curb people and vehicular movement the Madras High Court decided to impose these passes.  The High Court also issued a cap on daily tourist e passes as well, to regulate both tourist and vehicular movement.

Who will issue these e-passes?

The nodal agency to issue these e-passes rests with the District Collector.  A few details will be needed of the family of tourists to get these e-passes, which are Aadhar details, ration card, pass port details etc,apart from vehicle details and the trip duration has to be furnished to enter these two hill stations.

A word of caution!!!  Till the time of writing this blog the web site for issuance of e-passes is still under construction. The portal address for the web site is serviceonline.gov.in/tamilnaduor alternatively tnega.tn.gov.in . The e-passes will be issued online after proper validation. A guest may still face some teething trouble initially, but the process will smoothen out gradually, so claims the authorities.

The objective of implementing the e-pass is also to ensure safety of tourists arrival at the hill stations.  The authorities do not want to be caught off guard in the event of any unforeseen circumstances and to that extent e-passes play an important role in keeping a tab on the floating head count.  So in some ways, it acts as a useful tool for the administration to handle the situation with alacrity.

Skyway Tour: 

The staff in Skyway tours are experts in crating tours to the hill station and have end to end solution to plan and organise an exceptional holiday.  Do get in touch with Mr. Raghavendra on Mobile No. 9845168081 or Ms.Shylaja on Mobile No. 9845188115 and plan for an unblemished holiday with lasting memories.