For the second consecutive day on Sunday, the temple of Lord Venkateswara reeled under heavy crowds.
The impact was so heavy that serpentine queue lines became the order of the day and both footpaths leading to the town witnessed a steady flow of pilgrims. Estimates reveal that more than 75,000 pilgrims trekked to the holy shrine in the past two days. Sources attributed the reason to the unprecedented crowd to the last leg of summer holidays, which ended on Sunday. With an intention to boost the morale of employees , TTD Executive officer D. Sambasiva Rao not only camped atop the town since Saturday but also personally supervised the arrangements along with his deputy K.S. Srinivasa Raju. According to TTD Chairman C. Krishnamurthy, a record number of over one lakh pilgrims had darshan of the deity on Saturday alone. Of these while 78,677 pilgrims got their heads tonsured at the TTD’s Kalyanakatta an equal number of devotees availed free food under the ‘annaprasadam’ scheme.
Revealing the statistics, Mr. Krishnamurthy said the town has witnessed a record turnout in the pilgrim crowd during this summer vacations.
A total of 23,77,578 pilgrims had the darshan of the deity in the month of May alone as against 20,40,974 last year i.e. an increase by over 3,36,604 pilgrims.
The same is the case with Kalyanakatta — the tonsuring centre which has registered an all time record of 14,02,023 tonsures last month higher by 1,47,704 tonsures last year.
Free food
The data relating to those availing free food is put at a staggering 22,81,895 an increase by over 4,42,503 pilgrims when compared with last year. The TTD Chairman said that the management was keen to initiate many more pro-pilgrim measures in the days to come. With a wish to inject more transparency in the administration of the temple the board has constituted several committees for the purchase of commodities, engineering works and functioning of various trusts, he added.
When a reporter asked for his comments to the alleged intrusion of an aircraft over the space above the hill temple, he said he had inquired about the incident and added there was every need to respect people’s sentiments.
Estimates reveal that nearly 75,000 pilgrims trekked to the holy shrine in the past two days
