A heavy rush of devotees was witnessed at the Lord Venkateswara temple for the second day in a row on Friday.
The waiting time for darshan extended beyond 30 hours as the queue lines stretched to over four kilometres outside the Vaikuntam queue complex. The Narayangiri gardens, which has several massive halls that can accommodate over 15,000 devotees, were also packed to capacity.
Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) personnel were on their heels running from pillar to post meeting the requirements of the devotees.
The Srivari seva volunteers had a tough time supplying drinking water, buttermilk and food packets to those waiting in the queue lines.
Srivari Seva volunteers providing drinking water to devotees in the queue lines that stretched for over four km on to the road outside the Vaikuntam queue complex, in Tirumala on Friday.
Devotees were asked to join darshan lines at Kalyana vedika and Papavinasanam road junction and take the newly-constructed Outer Ring Road (ORR) to reach the Vaikuntam complex.
Though the town experienced showers in the early hours of the day, pilgrims were not subjected to any difficulty as they had already entered the complex by then.
The trekking routes from Alipiri and Srivari Mettu also experienced high footfalls.
Things were no different at the cottage allotment counters and Pilgrim Amenities Complex (PAC)s which buzzed with activity.
The TTD management appealed to the devotees to take note of the conditions and plan their visit to the temple accordingly.
TTD Executive officer A.V. Dharma Reddy attributed the surge in pilgrim crowd to a series of holidays that dotted the week and said that the withdrawal of restrictions in the issuance of paid and privileged darshan formats also contributed to the crowd.
A Command Control Room (CCR) has been exclusively set-up on the ORR with personnel of all departments to meet any kind of exigency arising out of the situation he said and felt that the diversion of darshan lines on to ORR has rather helped in meeting the obligations of pilgrims much faster and with ease. The situation he said is expected to last till Sunday.
