7 lakh devotees to have darshan in 10 days

 Tirumala: TTD is gearing up for Vaikuta Dwara Darshan which will be provided for 10 days in Tirumala temple from January 10-19.

Elaborating on the arrangements for Vaikunta Dwara Darshan, TTD EO J Syamala Rao said only devotees with tickets or tokens will be allowed for Srivari Vaikuntha Dwara Darshan.

While taking calls from devotees during the monthly ‘Dial your EO’ programme at Annamayya Bhavan in Tirumala on Saturday, he said TTD has made elaborate arrangements for the up-coming mega fete.

Answering the callers from Tirupati, Kothapeta and Chittoor, the EO said 91counters, including 87 in Tirupati and four at Tirumala, have been arranged to issue darshan tokens to devotees. In all, he said darshan will be provided to about 7 lakh devotees of all categories (SSD, SED, SRIVANI) in the 10 days.

The devotees shall have to bring original Aadhaar to book these tokens. For first three days, from January 10-12 the tokens will be issued in these centres from 5 am of January 9 whereas for the remaining days only a day before, he maintained.

Answering callers from different southern states who brought to the notice of EO about vari-ous spiritual discourses being telecast by SVBC during Covid time which were stopped to be resumed, the EO said he will verify. When a caller from Warangal and Rajampeta urged the EO to resume Angapradakshina tokens offline, he said there is no possibility.

To a request by a woman for additional quota during Vaikunta Ekadasi in Srivari Seva, he said enough number of sevaks have registered online for that slot and hence no additional quota is released.

A devotee from Srikakulam told the EO about the issue during payment gateway while booking online tickets, the EO said he will look into the matter.

When a caller from Renigunta urged the EO to enhance checking at Alipiri to which EO replied the concerned will be instructed.

A devotee from Hyderabad said the laddus appear too wet due to more usage of ghee, to which EO answered the quality of laddu prasadam was enhanced in the last a few months. “Usually, we prepare laddus as per Dittam. Anyway, we will examine the issue,” he answered.

In total, 31 pilgrim callers gave feed back to the EO.

Additional EO Ch Venkaiah Chowdary, JEO Goutami, CVSO Sreedhar, CE Satyanarayana and other departmental heads were also present.