Tirumala: 1.6L devotees have Balaji darshan during weekend

Tirumala: Tirumala is witnessing heavy rush due to weekends coupled with summer rush which is continuing.

Both the queue complexes were filled with pilgrims resulting in the queue lines stretching to Krishna Teja guest house near ring road, outside the queue complex. The approximate time for darshan for pilgrims with no darshan tokens was about 24 hours.

According to temple sources, a total of 1.60 lakh devotees had darshan in the weekend days - Friday (72,299) and Saturday (87,762) while the cash offerings at the Tirumala temple Hundi stood at Rs 7.50 crore. This includes Rs 3.92 crore on Friday and Rs 3.61 crore on Saturday. The number of pilgrims who had tonsured was also high with 80,131 including on Friday 36,378 and on Saturday 43,753 pilgrims observing the traditional practice during the two days.

The impact of the pilgrim rush was seen everywhere including at railway station and RTC bus stand brimmed with people arriving and returning home and from Alipiri footpath to Tirumala. And also at Akhandam where the pilgrims break coconuts and offer Harathi to the Lord, near the temple, laddu counters and also Annadanam complex at Tirumala.

It may be noted here that the TTD on its part made elaborate arrangements including pressing more number of Srivari Sevaks and volunteers for the convenience of the pilgrims and also suspended VIP break darshan till June 30 in order to provide darshan to more number of common pilgrims.