TIRUMALA: At around 8 a.m., the trial run for darshan in Lord Venkateswara Temple in Tirumala commenced.
Darshan for devotees in the temple is being resumed after a gap of nearly 80 days and prior to its permanent resumption, a trial run is being conducted to check for any lapses in the new system put in place in accordance with Central Government rules to ensure the safety of devotees and negate any chances of spread of coronavirus.
The first APSRTC bus with 30 TTD employees and their family members started from Tirupati and at Alipiri, TTD vigilance staff and medical teams clad in white-colored PPE suits checked them using thermal scanners.
The seating arrangement in the bus was in accordance with rules for maintaining social distance.
TTD had issued a total of 5,560 tickets online and offline for the TTD employees on Sunday which would give them their turn for darshan on Monday till 6:30 p.m. 250-300 people were allowed in the queue lines in the first hour.
The first batch of people reached the temple and stook in queues maintaining a distance of 3-4 feet from eath other, letting them view the diety comfortably.
As the number of devotees was limited, TTD allowed Lagu Darshan.
TTD chairman YV Subba Reddy and other officials stood at the Padikavali near Ranganayakula mandapam in the temple monitoring the queues and observed details like how many people were offering darshan in an hour and if they faced any issues.
A laddu was given with every ticket at the Laddu counter.
Similar trial runs were conducted in Kanaka Durga Temple in Vijayawada, Sri Brahmaramba Sametha Mallikarjuna Swamy temple in Srisailam, Narasimha Swamy temple in Simhachalam.
While other temples will resume regular darshans from June 10, TTD will resume it on June 11.