Pilgrim crowd swells further at Tirumala

Tirumala: With the pilgrim rush continuing at Tirumala, the waiting time for darshan crossed two days i.e. more than 48 hours. In an official release on Friday, the TTD appealed to the devotees to remain with patience in the queue lines as it will take a minimum of 48 hours for darshan, as per the pilgrim rush status on Friday evening.

The queue line which stretched to Sila Thoranam junction on the Ring Road, outside the queue complex on Thursday morning extend further and reached Gogarbham dam on Friday. In other words, the queue line extended to over 5 km from the queue complex.

Probably, it is first time in the recent years the queue line reaching Gogarbham dam area. Dasara holidays coupled with the holy Tamil Peratasi month saw the pilgrim rush swelling since Wednesday. Temple authorities requested the pilgrims who reached Tirumala to stay in pilgrim amenities centre for rest and join queue lines after the heavy rush recedes.

With the pilgrims pouring in, the TTD was forced to stop the pilgrims joining the queue from Friday evening and requested them to join the queue on Saturday from 10 am onwards, to control the pilgrim crowd. Meanwhile, the pilgrim rush is expected to reach its peak on Saturday as about 50,000 pilgrims reach Tirumala on the occasion of the holy third Saturday of Tamil Peratasi month making it very tough to the TTD administration to handle the unprecedented rush.

TTD Executive Officer A V Dharma Reddy inspected the queue lines on Friday evening and also appealed to the pilgrims that they should enter the queue lines only after 8 am on October 8 and till that time they should take rest at Pilgrim Amenities Complexes.