Heavy rush of pilgrims continues in Tirumala

Tirupati: The temple town of Tirumala continued to experience a heavy turnout of pilgrims on Sunday, this being the weekend and it being topped by days of vacations since Thursday.

The large swarm of devotees without tokens waited in the long-stretches of queue lines for up to 24 hours to offer prayers to the presiding deity at the Lord Venkateswara Temple.

The additional queue lines added at the Silathoranam point on Saturday morning also did not help fully, amid the massive arrivals of devotees on Sunday. The facilities in terms of accommodation and other services being provided by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) have been stretched beyond their limit.

According to the temple functionaries, as many as 85,450 pilgrims had darshan of the presiding deity on Saturday. By 6pm on Sunday, over 60,00 pilgrims had darshan, while thousands of devotees were still waiting in the serpentine queue lines. These lines  stretched beyond the  Vaikuntam complex, sheds in Narayanagiri garden, and to a distance of 2-3km. The starting point was at Silathoranam on the Outer Ring Road.

Though TTD made elaborate arrangements for the devotees, the problems of hot weather conditions and long waiting time in the extended queue lines defied any easy solution. The elderly and children in the queue lines were the worst-affected.

Meanwhile, on word from TTD executive officer Dharma Reddy and under the supervision of JEO Veerabrahmam, senior TTD functionaries in Tirumala have been overseeing the extension of facilities to the devotees and continuously monitoring the queue lines to ensure maximum support to the pilgrims.

TTD made arrangements for the supply of Annaprasadam, water and security to the multitude of visiting pilgrims. TTD has appealed to the devotees to come prepared to patiently wait in the queue lines till their turn for Lord’s darshan came, given the heavy rush on the hills these days.