'The whole plan is ready and will be executed soon,' he said.

'We hope that the cave would come up in the next four years. The work would take more than normal time because of the fragile ecology and also because we don't want to interfere in the pilgrimage at any stage,' he said.

'The pilgrims would continue to have 'darshan' as they do on normal days, while the work on a third cave would go on simultaneously,' he said.

In the next four years, the shrine board hopes that the pilgrim arrival would touch 10 million.

Pilgrims, however, want the shrine board to look at the track too. The 13-km track, they say, is now getting too crowded.

'At times, one has to wait for several minutes to allow fellow pilgrims to move upwards or downwards. This should not happen and the pony track should be altogether separate from the track used by those trekking on foot,' said Gian Chand, a resident of Jammu, who is a regular pilgrim to the shrine for the past five years.

The Vaishno Devi shrine is one of the richest shrines in India, with the offerings more than Rs.200 million (Rs.20 crore) annually.

The shrine is located 13 km uphill from Katra, the base camp 45 km north of Jammu.

(Binoo Joshi can be contacted at binoo.j@ians.in)