TIRUMALA: Ratha Saptami, fondly called mini-Brahmotsavams, witnessed a pilgrim footfall of over three lakh on Sunday like never before, and was a stupendous success, said TTD Chairman BR Naidu.
The first half of the day witnessed four vahanams, and concluded with a grand Chakra Snanam wherein Sri Sudarshana Chakrathalwar was rendered the sacred dip in the waters of Swamy Pushkarini.
The main attraction of Ratha Saptami was Suryaprabha Vahanam, wherein Sri Malayappa Swamy as Srimannarayana blessed His devotees. After inspecting galleries along with TTD Executive Officer AK Singhal, and interacting with devotees, Naidu said the TTD officials, in coordination with Vigilance and district police made elaborate arrangements to ensure that no devotee is put to inconvenience.
Following the humongous success, the Chairman thanked everyone, including TTD officials, staff, police, district administration, Srivari Sevaks and above all devotees towards the huge success. Meanwhile, the entire Tirumala reverberated with the divine chants of Govinda… Govinda by tens of thousands of devotees thronged from various places across the country.
The TTD provided 14 varieties of delicacies, including sambar rice, tomato rice, curd rice, sundal, badam milk etc. at regular intervals.
Around 2,000 Sevaks were deployed exclusively to serve Annaprasadam to devotees, and another 750 to serve drinking water to pilgrims waiting in galleries, and 250 to man pilgrim crowd.
The devotees expressed immense satisfaction at the Annaprasadam, drinking water, shelter and other services being offered to them.
To supervise the services offered to devotees, under the instructions of TTD Additional EO Ch Venkaiah Chowdary, TTD JEO Veerabraham personally monitored the facilities. While CV&SO Muralikrishna along with District SP Subbarayudu continuously monitored the crowd situation, and ensured hassle-free Vahana darshan to devotees.
Senior officers and deputation staff supervised the amenities being provided to the devotees in the galleries of the Four Mada Streets.
FACAO Balaji, CE Satyanarayana, Deputy CF Phanikumar Naidu, Additional FACAO Raviprasad, CPRO T Ravi and several other senior officers monitored the arrangements.