Darshan for all devotees to resume at Tirumala today

Tirupati: The issuance of Sarva Darshan tokens began here on Wednesday delighting the devotees waiting for long to have darshan of Lord Venkateswara. Darshan to the general public will start from Thursday.

The tokens for the time slotted Sarva Darshan (SSD) was issued through 18 counters located in three places including Vishnu Nivasam, near Railway Station (8), Srinivasam, near RTC Bus Stand (6) and Bhudevi complex near Alipiri Balaji Bus Station (4) from 7 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon.

People from the city and surrounding areas who are eagerly waiting for commencement of the darshan turned up early in the morning several hours ahead of opening of the counters, waiting patiently in queue lines to avail the off line Sarva Darshan token for darshan of Lord.

With more and more pouring at the counters, the queue line extended beyond the pilgrim complexes forcing people to wait many hours to avail the tokens. As the Tirumala temple was closed for long, which was for the first time in its 2000-year-old history, the resumption of darshan naturally generated a lot of interest among the devotees, more so from the pilgrim city which was evident with large number of people - men, women and children patiently sitting in the open as the queue line extended beyond the building complex to have their turn for token.

TTD JEO P Basanth Kumar and CVSO (chief vigilance and security officer) Gopinath Jetty inspected the counters at Bhudevi complex where large number of people from the city turned to avail Sarva Darshan tokens and interacted with them.

It is needless to say that they all in one voice welcomed the TTD resuming darshan of Lord and those availed the token were unable to suppress their joy and some turned emotional after availing the tokens for darshan.

TTD keeping in view the convenience of the devotees decided to release Sarva Darshan tokens up to June 17 instead of issuing the tokens a day in advance.

Accordingly, tokens were issued up to June 14 on Wednesday and for the remaining days up to June 17 will be issued on Thursday.

The issuing of tokens will be from 7 in the morning to 3 in the evening or till the quota exhaust whichever is earlier.

The TTD in a release on Wednesday said that the quota of offline SarvaDarshan tokens has been increased to 3,750 daily against 3,000 it has planned initially allowing more number of common pilgrims to have darshan of Lord.

It may be recalled that the TTD first resolved to allow 6,000 pilgrims daily including Sarva Darshan 3,000 and the remaining Rs 300 special entry ticket holders. It also decided to resume the VIP break darshan from Thursday along with the start of the darshan for the general public.

In other words, 7000 devotees daily will be allowed for darshan including special entry ticket holders, Sarva Darshan and VIP break.

The darshan which resumed on trial basis on June 8 completed successfully on June 10 with the employees allowed for darshan on the first two days and on the third day locals of Tirumala paving the path for the TTD to commence the darshan for general public from Thursday.