Kochi: After Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the Kerala Police which manages the Virtual Queue at Sabarimala, now bats for the ‘Tirupati model’ system in the hill shrine.
The police claims that the virtual queue would help in a uniform flow of devotees across the two-month long annual pilgrimage season.
“The biggest challenge in crowd management is that there is an uncontrollable rush of pilgrims on certain days while far less devotees visit the hill shrine on other days during the season.
“Only a uniform flow can help in smooth conduct of the pilgrimage and that can be achieved once the pilgrims arrive after getting registered online and during the allotted slot of time, just like the Tirupati model,” said a senior police officer in-charge of the virtual queue system.
Last season, a total of 16.66 lakh pilgrims availed of the virtual queue system, which is an attempt on the part of the Kerala Police to manage and control the crowd at the famous mountain temple.
The previous years saw 13.5 lakh (2014-15) and 8.5 lakh (2013-14) pilgrims utilising the facility. The free web-based service enables the pilgrims to reserve their place in the special queue at a specified hour on any day when the shrine is open on a first-come-first-serve basis.
However, this time around, the police has decided against increasing the allotment of slots. “With the existing facility, a maximum of 5,000 pilgrims could climb the holy 18 steps with the help of cops. Normally this figure is around 3,500. Hence on days when the pilgrims turn out in large numbers, the queue just gets bigger and devotees have to wait for hours altogether to have darshan,” the official said. The free online booking for the Virtual Queue system will commence on Monday.
