PATHANAMTHITTA: Long queues of devotees continued at the Sabarimala on Monday to collect aravana payasam, with nearly a third of the counters remaining closed, even as the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) maintained that there was sufficient stock of the offering.
Devotees said they had to wait for nearly two hours to buy aravana and appam. “Buying aravana is taking longer than the wait for the darshan,” a devotee said.
The situation comes a day after TDB president K Jayakumar said that two lakh tins of aravana were available as opening stock and around 1.5 lakh tins were being produced daily.
He had also said that five vending machines had been installed to enable devotees to collect the offering by depositing money without waiting in queues.
However, Devaswom Minister K Muraleedharan expressed dissatisfaction with the board’s preparations for the upcoming pilgrimage season.
Online room booking to be restricted
The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) has announced that online room bookings at Sabarimala will be restricted to pilgrims who have booked darshan slots.
The TDB is also planning to introduce additional verification measures, including Aadhaar-based OTP authentication, to prevent bulk bookings and exploitation by travel agencies. According to sources, the special commissioner will soon submit a report to the High Court recommending changes to the existing booking system
