Kochi: The holy Lord Ayyappa shrine at Sabarimala will be reopened for two month-long ‘Mandala-Makaravilakku’ pilgrimage season on Tuesday evening, however, regular poojas will commence only on Wednesday, the first day in the Malayalam month of Vrischikom. Outgoing ‘Melshanthi’ S E Sankaran Namboothiri will open the sanctum sanctorum at 5.30 pm and the ceremonies mainly include rituals installing new head priest T M Unnikrishnan Namboothiri.
After the day’s rituals, the outgoing melshanthi will climb down the holy 18 steps after handing over the keys to the new head priest who will open the sanctum sanctorum on Wednesday morning. The regular temple rituals will begin only after the Tantri performs the ‘Ashtadravya Maha Ganapathi homam’ in the morning. Meanwhile, all arrangements including healthcare facilities, provision of food and water and crowd control measures have been completed at the pilgrim centre, the Travancore Devaswom Board said in a statement.
Pathanamthitta Superinendent of Police R Harishankar said this time around the cops will introduce a five-digit police Helpline number – 12890 and a mobile application for facilitating pilgrims. “Both will be launched tomorrow. Pilgrims can dial the number for any kind of emergencies and a dedicated control room has been set up at Pampa to respond to the calls. The mobile application includes set of safety instructions and what the pilgrims should do for each kind of emergencies. Also the shortest route to Pamba would be indicated upon entering the district through which they are coming. Besides facilities like virtual queue, bus, train ticket bookings can also be done,” he told DC.
The first leg of the pilgrimage will culminate with the ‘mandala pooja’ on December 27. The temple will be closed and reopened again on December 30 for the ‘Makaravilakku’ with ‘jyothi darshan’ as its highpoint on January 15. However, several promises made earlier regarding facilities and infrastructure are yet to be fulfilled. It includes increasing water storage capacity of Kunnar Dam, completion of three-storeyed ‘Annadana complex’, adequate parking facilities at Pamba and measures to control Pamba river pollution among others.
