Tirupati: Devotees seek resumption of SSD tokens

Tirupati: Many pilgrims urged the TTD to resume the issuing of Time Slotted Sarva Darshan (SSD) tokens to avoid waiting for long in the queue line for darshan while the devotional channel SVBC was appreciated by many devotees for its live telecast of Parayanams (mass chanting) programmes. Some of the pilgrims during the 'Dial Your TTD EO' programme held on Saturday complained that they faced difficulties due to non-availability of rooms in Tirumala, though they got darshan tickets through online booking.

TTD executive officer AV Dharma Reddy said that the trust board which is scheduled to meet on July 11 will decided on resuming of the SSD tokens issuance at the counters in Tirupati down the hills.

Keeping in view the melee at the token issuing counters resulting in the suspension of SSD tokens on April 12, the TTD has taken up the works for making required arrangements at the counters to ensure orderly movement of pilgrims arriving to avail the tokens.

In this connection, Reddy admitting that in the absence of SSD tokens, the pilgrims are now waiting for long in the queue line for darshan.

"It is taking more than 20 hours to have darshan even today while the devotees are forced to wait almost two days on weekends for darshan," he said, stating that last Saturday the queue line extended up to ring road, stretching to a distance of four km from the queue complex.

Srinivas and Satyanarayana Murthy from Hyderabad complimented the EO for telecasting Parayanams in SVBC. While Saidamma from Vijayawada suggested to the EO to hold competitions on Parayanams and give away books on Ramayanam, Mahabharat and other epics as prizes to the winners.

The EO said that plans are afoot to increase the devotional programmes and TTD has already roped in the scholars from National Sanskrit University, SV Vedic University, Veda Patasala and also the officials of the TTD projects for introducing more and more Parayanams and other devotional programmes.

A caller complained about the delay in providing idols to the temple taken up in their town and another against the duty staff in the sanctum sanctorum who he said pushed him, denying proper darshan while at the same time allowing some pilgrims to stand for some time to have a good darshan. Venkatadri from Tirupati wanted the TTD EO to ensure the portrait of Lord in all the cottages in Tirumala, pointing that in his recent stay he found no image of God in his room. Devotee callers Mallesam from Jagithyala, Soundarya from Bengaluru welcomed the decision of TTD in making Tirumala a plastic-free zone and sought to implementation of the same in a more stringent manner to protect the green environs of the hill town.