TIRUMALA: Tirumala brimmed with devotees after thousands of people thronged the shrine. According to the reports, it took more than 20 hours for the devotees to have the darshan of the presiding deity, due to a sudden surge in number of devotees.
Anticipating the summer rush, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) is contemplating increasing the quality of services and facilities. In this regard, TTD executive officer AV Dharma Reddy, for the first time, requested the staff to find out a way to include more devotees to have a glimpse of the Lord every day.
According to the reports reaching here on Friday, additional 3,500 devotees reached Tirumala on foot through Alipiri along with the regular 10,000 Divya Darshan devotees. In addition to this another 5,000 devotees reached Tirumala through Sri Vari Mettu. These additional devotees could not get the Divya Darshan tokens.
Senior security and vigilance officer of TTD informed TNIE that a total of 78,000 devotees had darshan on Friday, 91,000 on Saturday and as many as 28,000 devotees trekked to Tirumala till 12.00 noon on Sunday.
Expecting a weekend rush till Tuesday, the temple authorities decided to maintain buffer stock on all week days instead of weekends. The authorities are also taking elaborate measures to increase barbers to meet the rush and reduce the waiting time of devotees who wish to get tonsured.