Serve devotees with respect, patience, TTD chief urges 'Sevakulu'

Tirumala: TTD Chairman Y V Subba Reddy enquired with common devotees on darshan and other facilities being provided by TTD management in Vaikuntam queue complex, here on Sunday.

He also interacted with Srivari Sevakulu (volunteers) group led by Lavanya from Nizamabad and enquired about their service details. TTD Chairman suggested the Srivari Sevakulu to be patient and offer services to common devotees and consider Srivari Seva as a unique opportunity to serve Sri Venkateswara Swamy Himself through service to devotees.

Reddy also spoke to other devotees in queue lines and assured that henceforth devotees with SSD tokens could have Srivari darshan on the same day without any hurdles. Many devotees informed Subba Reddy that facilities at Kalyana Katta, Annaprasadam etc were excellent and expressed happiness over the TTD allowing more number of devotees for free (Sarva) darshan after a gap of two years.

A devotee from Divas town of Madhya Pradesh Surendra Rathod told the TTD Chairman that he had come for darshan with his family after booking SED (Rs 300 special entry) tickets and expressed happiness over the facilities at Tirumala. Meanwhile, temple sources said that 67,750 devotees had darshan on Saturday while the cash offerings in the Hundi was Rs 3.13 crore.

It may be noted here that TTD to cope with the demand for free darshan increased the `Time Slotted Sarva Darshan (SSD)' tokens to 30,000 with Covid cases coming down, in addition to 25,000 SED tickets resulting in more number of common pilgrims being allowed daily for darshan.

In tune with the increase in the number of pilgrims allowed for darshan, the Alipiri footpath is kept open from morning 4 to night 10 while the ghat road from 3 in the morning to midnight 12. Two-wheelers will be allowed between 4 am and 10 pm.

The Srivari Mettu footpath to Tirumala which was damaged in the heavy rains that lashed the district including Tirupati-Tirumala in November last year, is still to be opened as the repair works are still going on.