PATHANAMTHITTA: Compared to the previous year, there is a shortfall of Rs 20 crore in the revenue from the current Sabarimala Mandalam-Makaravilakku pilgrimage season till Friday.
TDB president P S Prasanth said on Friday that the revenue touched Rs 134,44,90,495 during the 28 days of the ongoing pilgrimage season. Last time, till date, the revenue was Rs 154,77,97,005. So, there is a drop of Rs 20,33,06,510.
Prasanth told TNIE that the major reason for the drop was the decrease in the number of pilgrims visiting the hill shrine. “Last year, there was a remarkable rise in the number of pilgrims visiting the hill shrine. The last pilgrimage season was held in full swing after the floods and pandemic. So, last year maximum number of pilgrims arrived. Devotees from states like Karnataka and Telangana save a portion of their daily earnings and offer it to Lord Ayyappa.
From the 2018-19 to 2021-22 pilgrimage season, they could not come to the temple. However, in the last pilgrimage season (2022-23), a large number of devotees reached the temple and dedicated their daily savings from 2018 to 2022 to Lord Ayyappa. That was a reason for the high revenue last season,” he said.
“We hope the revenue will go up soon. Its signs are visible. In the first 15 days, the flow of pilgrims was low due to the floods in Chennai and elections in Telangana. However, the number of pilgrims has started going up. The 28th day saw a rise of Rs 21 lakh in revenue compared to the same day last year,” he said.
“Due to the low arrival of pilgrims during the first two to three weeks , the sale of ‘appam and aravana’ also came down. On those days, the daily sale of ‘aravana’ was 2.25 lakh tins. However, on December 12, the sale of ‘aravana tins’ was 4.25 lakh tins. For the past few days, an average of 3.25 lakh ‘aravana tins’ were sold daily.
District police chief V Ajith told TNIE that 18,16,588 pilgrims visited the hill shrine till Thursday midnight during the pilgrimage.
Surge in rush tramples crowd control claims
A heavy rush is expected at Sabarimala on Saturday despite claims of crowd management measures being implemented. The hill shrine witnessed an influx of pilgrims on Friday evening, and the police anticipated the surge to continue.
At least 63,635 pilgrims got darshan through virtual queue booking until 6pm on Friday, as per police data. The total figure on last Friday (December 8), stood at 88,744.
Currently, 4,600 devotees are ascending the holy steps every hour. That is over 75 pilgrims per minute. Three batches of the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) and Kerala Armed Police (KAF) have been deployed at the holy steps.
These batches, with 40 members each, rotate their duties every four hours. The IRB batch from Thrissur joined duty at Sabarimala after completing their poll duties in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
Meanwhile, anticipating heavy rush on Friday and Saturday, KSRTC announced that it would augment its chain and long-distance services. On Friday, KSRTC deployed 190 buses for chain services from Nilakkal to Pampa and the return trip, and 40 buses for long-distance services.
Sunil Kumar, the KSRTC special officer at Pamba, said the services were running smoothly, adding that the buses were operating within their capacities.
Officials said there were no traffic snarls on the forest route (Elavunkal to Nilakkal) over the past two days. Furthermore, despite an increase in pilgrim arrivals at Nilakkal, sufficient parking space was available for vehicles until Friday evening.