No rooms without Darshan ticket in Tirumala now

Henceforth you will get rooms in hill shrine of Tirumala only and after you have procured your slot for darshan of Lord Venkateswara on internet.

A decision to this effect has been announced after a marathon session of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu with the top brass of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam today.

State endowment minister P Manikyala Rao told reporters that the move was aimed at reducing the proliferation of pilgrims crush on Tirumala and their long wait for rooms while those with rooms were in darshan queues. "We want to remove the mismatch for accommodation and darshan at Tirumala," he said.

In another major initiative the TTD plans to stop all current issue of tickets for arjita sevas ( paid darshan rituals) and everything is now placed on internet. "Even the Rs.300 per head Sheegra darshan tickets which were earlier issued in the queue lines when introduced two years ago are also now made available on internet."

It may be noted that all the costliest and prestigious seva tickets of TTD at Tirumala are booked in advance years ahead. For example the Abhisekham and Melchat sevas are not available for a minimum of a decade for common man. But whenever there is a absentee the same tickets are sold in lucky draw, a day in advance, says TTD temple official Chinnamgari Ramana.

The popular southern hill shrine has been attracting around 65000-75000 pilgrims daily with almost 20,000 coming by walk from Tirupati to Tirumala. We have around 7000 rooms but they become inadequate when most of rooms get blocked with devotees in darshan queues, says the minister. Linking darshan with rooms would be a boon as nobody with darshan tickets would be denied rooms.

Last year, the TTD recorded a whopping 77 lakh laddus sales about 2 crore footfalls during 2013-14 and as always there was huge demand for affordable rooms .TTD has set up several Pilgrim Amenities Complex(PAC) at Tirumala which could accommodate almost 20,000 pilgrims in one stretch with just lockers and bed space .

The Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam has set forth a massive restructuring of their infrastructure to the booming demand which would further swell in the summer months. "Even now we have huge crowds on weekends when almost one lakh pilgrims will throng the shrine," he says.

Earlier in the day the Chief Minister directed the TTD operated SVBC (Sri Venkateswara Bhakti channel) to broadcast programs linking science with Bhakti cult to attract youth on the path of righteousness and Bhakti.