Thanks to covid curbs, Tirumala devotees have peaceful darshan of Lord Venkateswara
The temple management made elaborate arrangements for devotees, right from their arrival at Alipiri to the completion of the pilgrimage
Tirupati: The first set of 7,000-odd devotees, who offered prayers to Lord Venka-teswara on the first day the hill temple in Tirumala was thrown open to general pilgrims on Thursday, had a leisurely darshan, thanks to the anti-Coronavirus measures in place.
The temple management made elaborate arrangements for devotees, right from their arrival at Alipiri the completion of the pilgrimage.
The temple management also restarted other services including accommodation, tonsure facility and distribution of anna prasadam. The devotees expressed immense satisfaction and praised the temple management. saying that the darshan was the best ever.
“I never had such a peaceful darshan in the last two decades. Usually, we worship the Lord amidst heavy crowds, but today's darshan was completely different and we felt like we were having a VIP break darshan.
That is the grace of Lord Balaji. He put all of us on litmus test by not giving darshan for over 80 days, and now he gave us the darshan which we had never before,” a devotee said.
Saravana Babu, a devotee from Tamil Nadu, said, “Starting from the Alipiri check point to entering the queue lines, inside the sanctum sanctorum, the anna prasadam complex and laddu counters, TTD took all precautions and followed Covid guidelines. It is now the turn of all of us (pilgrims) to cooperate and ensure that we follow the guidelines”.
The TTD had conducted a trial run for three days from June 8, allowing darshan for its employees and local residents.
It was observed that with social distancing practices and other guidelines, no devotee had to wait in the outside queue lines or in the compartments at the Vaikuntam queue complex. They could directly walk into the queue lines and complete darshan within an hour.
TTD chairman Y.V. Subba Reddy lauded the efforts of TTD officials in making the arrangements for the pilgrims. “Our officials worked day and night to come out with a pucca plan and executed it with perfection with the teamwork of all departments both at Tirumala and in Tirupati", he said.
A total of 6,998 devotees had darshan of the Lord on Thursday. Of these, 141 were from Telangana state and 151 from Karnataka 151 and the others came from Maharashtra, New Delhi, Arunachal Pradesh, Puducherry and West Bengal.