Pilgrim turnout at Sabarimala yet to catch up

Even as the restrictions imposed on pilgrims at Sabarimala Ayyappa temple in view of the rough weather alerts have been relaxed by Thursday, the number of devotees turning up for darshan is remaining low.

On Thursday only 7,275 pilgrims turned up for darshan till 6 pm. Even as up to 30,000 pilgrims are allowed to book on the virtual queue system, only around 25,000 had booked. But many were dropping the plans to visit, which could be due to the rough weather alerts.

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The restrictions imposed on devotees in view of the rough weather was withdrawn by Thursday and a spot booking facility for the virtual queue was also opened at locations like the Nilackal base camp near Sabarimala. Hence the number of pilgrims was expected to go up in the coming days.

The fall in the number of devotees over the last couple of years owing to factors like calamities, agitations over women entry issue and Covid had badly hit the revenue to the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) from the temple. While the average revenue from the temple during the two-month-long pilgrimage season was Rs. 200 crore, last time it was only around Rs. 15 crore. There are around 1,250 temples under the TDB and many of the temples were surviving with the revenue from Sabarimala. Hence the fall in revenue from Sabarimala is a major cause for concern for the TDB.

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In order to discourage the practice of pilgrims booking on the virtual queue system and not turning up for darshan, the TDB had also mooted imposing a refundable fee for booking on the virtual queue system. But the government did not take it forward.

It is owing to the Covid situation that the number of pilgrims allowed at the temple daily is limited to 30,000 and darshan will be allowed only through the virtual queue. The two-month-long pilgrimage began on Tuesday.

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