Over two lakh devotees obtain SSD-free tokens for ‘Vaikunta Dwara Darshan’

TIRUPATI: Over 1.5 lakh devotees have secured time-slotted free Sarva Darshan (SSD) tokens for Vaikunta Dwara Darshan at the Tirumala temple in a hassle-free manner in Tirupati, up to 6pm on Sunday. This was thanks to the elaborate arrangements made by the TTD and the Tirupati urban police.

Keeping in view the past experiences, the temple administration has set up nearly 100 counters at nine different centres in Tirupati to issue 4.5 lakh free SSD tokens pertaining to the Vaikunta Dwara Darshan for the next ten days starting today. The SSD tokens will be issued till completion of allocated quota.

Meanwhile, thousands of devotees in and around Tirupati city, as well as those who travelled long distances to have darshan of Lord Venkateswara Swamy and walked through the Vaikunta Dwaram, made a beeline for the nine SSD token-issuing centres in the city on Saturday night.

This forced the TTD to begin issuance of the tokens at 1am on Sunday, rather than the scheduled time of Sunday afternoon.

The TTD released a QR code scanner to prevent incidents like stampedes. This helps devotees to reach the nearest token counter from their location, as well as learn in advance the darshan date and the time slot of the tokens issued at the token counters in real-time.

This also helps devotees to spread out across all the nine token counters rather than congregate at a single token counter.

TTD's vigilance and security wing, in collaboration with the Tirupati urban police, has set up barricades for queues at all nine counters, primarily put up in Tirupati's huge open grounds. There was no roof-top cover for the queue lines at some centres and pilgrims faced the inconvenience of standing under the scorching sun.

Meanwhile, the TTD chairman inaugurated an annaprasadam centre at the old Annaprasadam complex in Tirumala on Sunday. He said the TTD would open Mini Anna Prasadam Bhavans at four places in Tirumala as the crowd size swelled at the Matrusri Tarigonda Vengamamba Anna Prasadam Complex.