Devotees have to wait 2 days for darshan in Tirumala

Tirupati: Tirumala witnessed a heavy turnout of pilgrims this weekend Saturday extending the waiting time for darshan to two days. The flow of devotees which started increasing right from the morning gathered momentum by afternoon and reached its peak by evening resulting in the massive queue complex overflowing, leading to the queue line extending fastly reaching Rambhaicha area. Finding the pilgrim rush going beyond manageable level, TTD came out with an appeal to the devotees who have no darshan tickets booked in advance, plan their visit to Tirumala duly taking into account the waiting time which it admitted that reached two days. The condition of the devotees waiting for hours, outside the queue complex, on the serpentine queue line with children and women is pathetic as there are limited basic facilities in the queue.

lines. A temple official said that the influx of pilgrims is higher than the pilgrim rush during Vaikunta Ekadasi or Garuda Seva days and as a result Srivari Darshan is taking more than 48 hours with all the queue lines and compartments brimming with rush. As of now it was possible to give Srivari Darshan to only 4,500 devotees per hour. But with the heavy rush to provide darshan to all those in queue lines it takes a minimum two days. If the rush continues with the same flow, the waiting time may go beyond two days, a senior official said.

TTD EO INSPECTS DEVOTEES FACILITIES

TTD Executive Officer AV Dharma Reddy along with senior officials inspected the queue lines on Saturday evening and directed all the department officials to step up the facilities to ease the difficulties of the devotees waiting in the queue lines. He said elaborate arrangements of drinking water, milk, Anna Prasadam

etc. are being made and TTD security with the coordinated efforts of police ensured safety measures to devotees. Tirupati SP Parmeswar Reddy along with TTD and Tirumala police senior officials including TTD chief vigilance and security officer Narasimham Kishore inspected the quelines and reviewed security arrangements to ensure orderly movement of the pilgrims and their safety aspects.