Tirupati: Keeping in view of the upcoming Vaikunta Ekadasi festival, a high-level coordination meeting was held on Tuesday at Annamayya Bhavan in Tirumala to review police preparedness and TTD arrangements.

The meeting focused on crowd management, security measures, traffic control, peacekeeping, and essential services for pilgrims expected to arrive in large numbers.

The review meeting was jointly conducted by Tirupati District SP L Subba Rayudu and TTD Vigilance & Security Officer KV Murali Krishna. Senior officers from multiple departments attended the session.

Speaking at the meeting, the SP directed officials to identify in advance the areas where heavy crowds are expected during Vaikunta Ekadasi.

He stressed the need for proper deployment of monitoring staff, queue-line management teams, and traffic control units.

He also instructed officials to pay special attention to laddu distribution centres to ensure orderly movement, discipline, and enhanced safety measures.

The SP asked all departments to provide continuous announcements through public-address systems at key locations such as the bus stand, railway station, Srinivasam complex, Alipiri, and luggage counters to guide devotees effectively. Officials briefed him on the ongoing security arrangements, including access-control checks and regular bomb-squad inspections. The SP suggested strengthening these measures wherever needed.

He issued a stern warning that strict legal action would be taken against jeep drivers, agents, or middlemen who illegally offer tokens or mislead and cheat devotees. He said cases would be filed firmly against such offenders.

To ensure round-the-clock monitoring of crowds, the SP instructed officials to link drones to the Command Control Centre and deploy joint police–TTD teams to keep a close watch on queue-line areas as per guidelines. Additional SPs Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna Chari, Srinivasulu, Kulasekhar, Srinivas Rao along with other officers along with DSPs Venkata Narayana, Prasad, Vijay Sekhar and Chandrasekhar along with other officers participated in the meeting.