Visakhapatnam: Online tickets turn out to be a bane than a boon

Visakhapatnam : Even as the online ticket booking introduced for the first time by endowments department at Simhachalam Devasthanam for Chandanotsavam festival, the platform resulted in disadvantages rather than advantages.

While online ticket booking commenced five days prior to the major festival, those who availed the tickets lost their money during the initial days. For many, the amount got debited from their respective bank accounts but they could not download the tickets. Till now, they are unable to fathom how to reverse the transaction. "This time, we preferred online tickets for convenience purpose. But although the cost of four tickets was debited from my account, they are yet to reverse the transaction. We have no clue about when will the amount get credited as Devasthanam officials are yet announce any information regarding this," said A Sridhar, a devotee.

Normally, the annual festival witnesses stampede after a few hours of starting 'nijaroopa darshan'. Keeping this in view, the temple officials raised objections and proposed online ticket booking system. The district administration said proper mechanism would be in place to verify the online tickets at entry points.

However, a while after the commencement of 'nijaroopa darshan', those who produced online tickets were given access to the temple after scanning of QR code but not for long. With a large number of devotees thronging the temple queue lines, the deployed police personnel were hardly left with any time to scan the QR code as they were busy controlling the surging crowd. Also, the tickets that were given were neither scanned nor torn by the officials.

As a result, the devotees passed the same tickets to their friends and relatives to gain entry access to the darshan. It was only much later that the officials realised that the unmanageable queue lines were the outcome of repeated use of the online tickets.

Some of the devotees who took advantage of the situation also produced coloured photocopies of the QR coded online tickets.

Thousands of protocol passes were given to the VVIPs and VIPs. Unfortunately, some of them also showed passes repeated at the entry points. Apparently, two slots were given to them for four scheduled hours. Even after seven hours, the queue lines dedicated to them could not be cleared. This is the clear indication of lack of proper monitoring mechanism. Similar situation was witnessed in both Rs.1,000 and Rs.1,500 queue lines . Those who faced trouble while booking online tickets hope that the officials concerned would work towards crediting back their ticket amount at the earliest.