The hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara, which has been teeming with pilgrims for the past three days, remained a mute spectator to the huge number of devotees returning without having darsan.
With the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) suspending the availability of special entry darsan tickets, thousands of devotees were forced to return without getting a chance to offer prayers in the sanctum sanctorum.
Even as the pilgrims had an alternate option of joining the dharma darsan queue lines that stretched up to more than three kilometres outside the Vaikuntam complex, they did not prefer to join the line, as the waiting period ran beyond 30 hours.
A few pilgrim parties from Chennai told The Hindu that they were unaware of the cancellation of the Rs. 300/- darsan tickets as well as its availability on the internet before. The pilgrims who had come along with their families also questioned the rationale behind the hasty implementation of the decision, which they argued was yet to go down well with the people.
TTD Executive Officer Dr. D. Sambasivsa Rao said the management was already on the job of plugging loopholes in the new ticketing system. “Ensuring a hassle-free darsan to all pilgrims is the TTD’s priority. The motto is that no pilgrim, poor or rich, returns without having darsan,” he added.
Even though the TTD management is planning to make 18,000 darsan tickets (of Rs.300/-) available on the internet, a recent study has revealed that the maximum number of the online tickets availed on a single day till the end of last week stood at 12,000, which is far less than expectated. “Once the reported anomalies in the ticketing system are rectified, the TTD will definitely adopt a practical approach to the problem,” Dr. Rao said.
