Sanjeev K Sharma
JAMMU, Apr 19: The organization managing cable car operations in J&K has claimed that it follows all the safety norms including those of national and international standards to ensure safety of cable car users so that chances of Jharkhand type incidents remains nil here.
It is pertinent to mention here that few days back three people were killed while being rescued from cable cars in Jharkhand’s Deoghar district after the ropeway connecting a hill there malfunctioned.
After the Deoghar ropeway accident, the Centre had asked all the States and Union Territories to carry out a safety audit of each ropeway project and put in place Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to deal with such situations.
Reliable sources in J&K Cable Car Corporation-organization managing cable car operations in J&K informed that there is internal safety audit under which there is daily checking for half an hour of the entire system of cable cars in morning right from top to the bottom of the entire system before the start of operation of the cable cars.
They further informed that apart from this, a day is fixed for weekly checking of the entire system for about one hour and these are just normal precautions taken on daily, weekly and monthly basis.
When contacted Mohammad Akbar Wani, Managing Director (MD) of the Corporation informed that on yearly basis too there is inspection by Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) which is mandatory.
“Under OEM inspection, the entire system of cable cars is checked and if any problem, from minor to minute, is detected anywhere in the system, replacements are made immediately,” he said adding that in inspection under OEM magnetography of every component of the cable car system especially the ropes is done and till the satisfactory report is not obtained, the operation of cable cars is halted.
The MD also said that apart from this, for all essential components of cable car system like grips, shafts, frames etc, separate magnetography is done to check if there is even a minor issue in any component which if detected follows immediate replacement of that component.
“The last such inspection was done in October 2021 wherein we had detected 14 grips and frames with minor issues and such components were replaced by the new ones and the faulty were sent to Delhi for repair,” he maintained adding: “After receiving back the repaired parts we again go for their magnetography to check if they are perfect to use or not.”
The MD said that international ropeway norms are followed by the Corporation in operation of cable cars and during winds operations of the cable cars are stopped as a precautionary measure.
Sources in the Corporation informed that some special safety audit is also done by the Corporation which is running the cable car projects for the last 20-22 years and during this period no incident has occurred except some ‘Act of God’ like falling of some tree etc which only happened once.
The cable car projects run by J&K Cable Car Corporation include Gulmarg Gondola Project which is a fully imported system installed by Pomagalski of France. The system installed is a detachable Gondola System with Phase-I running from Gulmarg to Kangdori and its Phase-II runs from Kangdori to Apharwat.
Then there is Kongdori to Mary-Shoulder Chairlift to promote winter tourism at Gulmarg, Makhdoom Sahib Ropeway Project in Srinagar and Jammu Ropeway Project whose Section-I is from Peerkho to Mahamaya Park and Section-II from Mahamaya Park to Bahu.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
