TIRUMALA: With more and more pilgrims visiting the holy hill shrine on Tirumala and many preferring to take the foot path, it has become a herculean task to provide comfortable darshan for each one of them.
Considering the situation, TTD administration has decided to streamline the Divya Darshan system (tickets issued to pilgrims trekking to Tirumala from either Alipiri or Srivari Metlu at Srinivasa Mangapuram).
Disclosing this to mediapersons, here on Sunday, TTD JEO (Tirumala) KS Srinivasa Raju said that Divya Darshan system has garnered a lot of popularity among pilgrims in recent times, as pilgrims will get first preference for darshan, as soon as they reach the hill top.
“Usually we get around 15,000 pilgrims on both Alipiri and Srivari Metlu routes during normal days on an average; while it reaches upto 25,000 during peak days or weekends.
We can provide darshan upto 20,000 comfortably.But for the first time over 42,000 pilgrims trekked the hill on Saturday, which has gone beyond our expectations and has become a mammoth task for us to provide darshan to all of them.
So we have decided to limit these tickets also to 22,0000 and this rule will come into effect shortly,” he added.
According to him, the Divya Darshan tokens will henceforth be issued only at Vishnu Nivasam, Srinivasam and Alipiri luggage centres only.
The pilgrims are advised to plan their trekking based on timings of tokens issued to them. These tokens will be revalidated at Galigopuram. This step has been initiated keeping in view only convenience of the pilgrims, he explained.
Later CVSO GVG Ashok Kumar said, as the SSC exam results were announced, Tirumala has witnessed an unprecedented crowd on Saturday which has crossed the one lakh mark.
“We are expecting a similar crowd the next two weeks too, as the EAMCET results are in the offing.
We have deployed special action teams to tackle emergency situations.
We have had discussion with the police department to deploy more police personnel till the summer rush is over,” he added.