Pilgrim rush swells at Tirumala

Tirupati: With 2021 coming to a close in a few days, pilgrim rush is increasing everyday at Tirumala for the last one week.

From around 30,000 pilgrims the number has slowly reached close to 40,000 now while on Saturday a total of 38,160 devotees visited the temple. It is slated for a further steep increase to cross the 50,000 mark in January as the TTD decided to increase the number of tickets including Sarva Darshan tickets.

On Monday at 9 am, it will release the Slotted Sarva Darshan (SSD) tokens quota online for the month of January 2022. It was decided to release 5,000 tickets a day for the 10-day period between January 13 and 22 to provide Vaikunta Dwara Darshan for the devotees and about 10,000 tickets a day during the remaining days in the coming month.

Devotees can book these tickets online and visit the temple on the stipulated date and time as no one will be allowed without any darshan ticket to reach Tirumala. The number of devotees may further swell in January as the TTD has decided to issue SSD tokens in offline mode as well from January 30 in Tirupati. It was decided to release 5,000 tickets per day in offline mode which may take the daily number of pilgrims visiting the temple to above 50,000.

It may be noted that the TTD has suspended issuance of SSD tokens offline for more than three months in view of the prevailing Covid situation. However, the temple management has been contemplating to start offline issuance of tickets now though the Omicron variant cases have been slowly increasing in the State.

Though the temple authorities have been making repeated requests to the devotees to follow Covid norms, many people were not even wearing masks properly and the physical distancing was not there for a long time. With the steep surge in pilgrim numbers, following physical distance may not be possible and the devotees should adhere to the norm of wearing masks to protect themselves.

However, on its part, the TTD has made it clear that only those having double vaccination certificates or Covid negative certificates obtained within 48 hours of darshan will be allowed to reach Tirumala. Still, doctors as well as the TTD have been advising the devotees to strictly wear masks.

It may be noted that Tirupati airport was also witnessing huge rush with the devotees bound for Tirumala reaching the city by flights. It is expected that the rush may increase in the next few days, as people want to worship Lord Balaji before the year ends while it will be a sentiment for some others to visit the temple on the New Year Day and in the next few days after that.