Devotee Influx Causes Long Queues at Srikalahasti
Long queues formed even before the temple opened, with all lines filling up in the early hours.
Tirupati: The Srikalahasteeswara temple in Tirupati district witnessed a heavy inflow of devotees on Sunday -- when the weekend and the end of the festival season prompted flow of large crowds to the temple.
Long queues formed even before the temple opened, with all lines filling up in the early hours.
Devotees arrived in large numbers to offer prayers to Lord Srikalahasteeswara and Goddess Gnana Prasunambika. Many pilgrims performed special poojas, particularly the Rahu–Ketu pooja. The continuous arrival of devotees caused congestion inside the temple premises, leading to long waiting hours for general darshan.
Temple priests said more than 30,000 devotees had darshan from morning till late at night. During the day, 7,220 Rahu–Ketu poojas were performed. Of these, 4,153 devotees opted for the Rs.500 tickets, while 1,558 chose the Rs.750 tickets. Another 741 devotees purchased Rs.1,500 tickets, 522 opted for Rs.2,500 tickets, and 246 devotees selected the Rs.5,000 category.
The pooja tickets generated a revenue of Rs.68.91 lakh.
A total of 5,469 devotees purchased darshan tickets, including 2,954 Seeghra Darsanam tickets. Special entrance tickets were taken by 2,150 devotees, while 365 opted for Antaralaya darshan. More than 30,000 packets of prasadams were sold during the day.
Although four separate queue lines were arranged at both the Lord and Goddess temples, the arrangements were not sufficient during peak hours. Frequent movement of devotees opting for inner sanctum darshan led to pauses in other queues.
As Sunday coincided with Thai Amavasya, the temple staff were busy with festival duties, and police personnel were deployed to manage the crowd and maintain order.
