TTD on overdrive as Tirumala sees summer surge

TTD, the administrator of the Tirumala shrine, has gone on an overdrive to manage the crowd surge as summer vacations will draw to a close in a week. 

On Saturday, the temple town saw a surge in the number of pilgrims wanting to have the Lord’s darshan, prompting TTD to deploy 2500 Srivari Seva volunteers to manage the surge at various places from all darshan points, VQC I and II, Annaprasadam to health, vigilance and Temple. 

TTD JEO KS Sreenivasa Raju personally oversaw arrangements and inspected the queue lines, laddu counters, four-mada streets among other places. Officials also supervised food, buttermilk and water distributions. TTD’s Annaprasadam wing offered food for pilgrims at the queue, compartments and other food paths through Srivari sevakulu. 

Such was the crowd that it took 16 hours for those in the Sarva Darshan to move, while Divya Darshan  darshan took eight hours. The special entry darshan on Rs 300 fee was allowed after 9 am only on advanced booking.  About 45,023 pilgrims had Srivari Darshan, while the numbers were 75,577 pilgrims on Thursday and 70,471 on Wednesday.