Devotees Complain of Dismal Facilities at Arasavalli for Ratha Sapthami

Visakhapatnam: Ratha Sapthami celebrations will commence at the Arasavalli Temple from Friday midnight. Devotees from all over the country are expected to participate in the birth anniversary of Suryanarayana Swamy.

Collector Manzeer Jilani Samoon, along with temple authorities and chief priests, inspected the arrangements for free and VVIP darshans. The collector directed officials to take precautionary measures for preventing any inconvenience to devotees, particularly in view of the heavy turnover of the faithful. RDO Ch. Rangaiah has held a coordination meeting with officials of various departments in this regard.

However, fears of inadequate arrangements are persisting. Last year, 1.20 lakh devotees arrived for Ratha Sapthami. But authorities made arrangements for only 60,000. Arrangements made this year are similar.

Last year, devotees entered from the east-north gate buying ₹100 tickets hoping for a quicker darshan of the Sun God. But they remained in the queue for hours amid intense heat. There had been no drinking water arrangements. Several devotees fell unconscious. Elderly and disabled faced great difficulty due to insufficient wheelchairs.

There is a fear that devotees will face the same inconvenience this year too, with no arrangements having been made to deal with the rush of devotees. There is no emergency route to evacuate those who may become unwell. No medical camp has been established yet.

Last year, the VIP queue caused a lot of inconvenience to common devotees. This year, authorities have arranged two queues, one for VVIPs and the other for VIPs. It is feared this will cause more trouble.

The queue for free darshan had crossed Indrapushkarini last year. Many devotees suffered standing for long under the sun for the darshan of Suryanarayana Swamy.

When over a lakh of devotees are expected, there is only one prasadam counter.