No heavy rush at Tirupati on New Year' eve

Hyderabad: Tirumala, which bustles with pilgrims and is jampacked on New Year’ eve, did not see a huge rush on on Monday. Even the VIP counters were thinly attended throughout the day after TTD announced it would not entertain reference letters of VIPs but would allow only protocol VIPs for darshan on January 1.

Anticipating huge rush of pilgrims, the TTD has made elaborate arrangements for VIPs and devotees on the eve of New Year, at par with Vaikunta Ekadasi. 

There was criticism from a section of devotees that the temple administration had unnecessarily blocked accommodation and cancelled arjitha sevas anticipating a heavy influx which never came. Mr Keerthi Kumar, a devotee from Vellore, said, “The TTD administration should have estimated properly and taken measures accordingly. It should at least have eased room allotment and VIP ticket issuance norms after having realised that the turnout of devotees on Monday was poor.”

The temple management had also withdrawn Divya darshan, given to pilgrims who walk up the steps and privilege darshan for the aged and physically challenged devotees. A total of 55,373 devotees had darshan by 6 pm and there was no waiting in the queue compartments.

“After its forecast turned out to be wrong, the TTD should have eased the norms. If it is not possible to ease the norms for VIP darshan and arjitha sevas, they should have restored divya darshan and darshan for aged and physically challenged, but they did nothing,” said D. Pradeep Kumar, a devotee from Bengaluru said.