The woman, identified as Shelvi from Puducherry, managed to reach the front yard of the shrine by climbing the “18 holy steps”. Shelvi, who was part of a pilgrims’ group from Puducherry, was detained by women police at Pamba.

She was taken into custody for violating the ban on entry of women in 10-50 age group into the temple, currently thronged by thousands of pilgrims after the shrine opened for Mandala pooja.

Police said Shelvi managed to evade the security and reach the shrine, where she was first spotted by a news photographer, who alerted the police. Kannada actress Jayamala had recently claimed that she had visited the temple 21 years ago, sparking a controversy.

Shortage of prasadam
Meanwhile, with the temple opening for the festival season on Saturday, devotees faced shortage of prasadam, forcing the authorities to restrict its supply.

Speaking to reporters, on Sunday, C K Guptan, president of the Travancore Devasom Board (TDB), which manages the affairs of the temple, said that they have taken over the production of the prasadam following the failure of the contractor to meet the demand.

“The daily production of prasadam is around 1.25 lakh cans and due to shortage of cans we have been forced to restrict the supply and henceforth a devotee will get only a maximum of five cans,” said Mr Guptan.
Each can of prasadam costs Rs 50 and the decision of the TDB to take over the production and supply is to prevent black marketing of the prasadam.

“On the first day itself following short supply of prasadam, devotees had to wait for more than five hours in the queue,” said a journalist, who was on the temple premises.

To meet the excessive rush in the first few days, the authorities stock around a million cans of prasadam, but this time it was not done, temple insiders said.

“There is a serious shortage of cans and if necessary we will airlift these containers from Taiwan,” said Mr Guptan.

Rise in devotees likely
State Devasom Minister G Sudhakaran said this season they are expecting a 30 percent increase in the devotees.

Last season an estimated three million devotees visited the temple with collections of over Rs 10 million.

The festival season of the Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Ayyappa goes on till the third week of January.

The Lord Ayappa temple, at an altitude of 914 metres above sea level and four km from Pamba in Pathanamthitta district in central Kerala, bars the entry of women who have attained puberty but not reached menopause.