In a major relief to the common pilgrims, the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) on Wednesday decided to provide 8,000 Slotted Sarva Darshan (SSD) tokens per day on a par with the Special Entry Darshan (SED) tokens from September 26.
The SSD tokens will be made available from September 26 till October 31. The online tokens for the period will be released at 9 a.m. on September 25 on TTD’s website.
At present, about 2,000 SSD tokens are provided offline at the TTD counters in Tirupati on a daily basis.
The counters have been witnessing heavy crowds despite the TTD making it clear that people hailing from the district alone will be allowed darshan for the time being.
The advent of Tamil ‘Puratassi’ month compounded the TTD’s difficulties as the devotees from Tamil Nadu, who attach much significance to the auspicious month, began thronging the town in huge numbers for darshan.
In this backdrop, the TTD decided to enhance the SSD tokens to 8,000 and provide them online. It also decided to stop the issuance of the tokens offline at its counters in Tirupati from September 26.
TTD Chairman Y.V. Subba Reddy said the decision to stop issuance of offline tokens was taken to avoid overcrowding at the counters and keeping in view the health of the devotees during the COVID-19 times.
He said devotees should carry the vaccination certificates pertaining to the two doses, or negative Rt-PCR test report obtained three days earlier with them while reporting for darshan and strictly abide by the protocols.
The online quota of the ₹300 SED tokens for the month of October will be released at 9 a.m. on September 24.