Arrangements for Vaikunta Ekadasi from Nov 25

 Tirumala: The arrangements for the big religious event, Vaikunta Ekadasi and Dwadasi scheduled on December 18 and 19 will commence from November 25 onwards, said TTD EO Anil Kumar Singhal. 

After ‘Dial Your EO’ programme, addressing the media here on Friday, the EO said, this year micro-level planning has been made for Vaikunta Ekadasi and the temporary sheds will be laid in four mada streets to manage the pilgrims in an orderly manner with defined entry and exit gates.

The engineering works will commence from 25th of this month and JEO Tirumala KS Srinivasa Raju will be continuously monitoring the arrangements, he added. Singhal said the special darshan for 4,000 aged and physically challenged persons will be allotted on November 20 and 27 while parents with infants below the age of 5 years on November 21 and termed since the season is a slag period.

He stated the TTD has embarked on improving facilities in sub-temples (local temples) in Tirupati and surrounding place like Srinivasa Mangapuram and Tiruchanur keeping in view of the steady increase of pilgrims visiting the sub temples.

A senior official has been deputed as in-charge for the works and also suggest further measures for the development of these shrines to attract more pilgrims. The pilgrims availing slotted Sarva darshan may visit these temples during the time, before the darshan time allotted to them for darshan in Tirumala temple, 

he averred. Efforts are on to provide parking facility in Govindaraja Swamy temple while Rs 5 crore worth development works were proposed in Srinivasa Managapuram which will be taken up after the clearance of the Archaeological Survey of India, he informed. Earlier, during the ‘Dial your EO,’ a caller Ramaiah from Bengaluru sought to telecast Vishnu Sahasranamam during evening times in SVBC.

As many as 25 pilgrim callers had given suggestions and brought many issues to the notice of the TTD EO. Ramachandra Reddy from Kadapa and Sriramulu from Eluru have sought EO to ensure Seva tickets in online to which EO replied, for more transparency the TTD has introduced only one registration for one mail.

Identity and one mobile number from this month onwards required to get tickets online. “We will examine this for a few months and based on the feedback we will make further pilgrim friendly amendments,” he stated.