Even as the heavy influx of pilgrims to Sabarimala continues, a meeting convened by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday decided to fix a cap on the daily number of visitors to the hill temple during the ongoing season.
President of the Travancore Devaswom Board K.Ananthagopan said the meeting decided to limit the number of virtual queue bookings to 90,000 a day, besides extending the timing of darshan by one more hour. The number of ritual offerings such as Astabhishekam and Pushapabhishekam too would be brought down accordingly.
The meeting also decided to accommodate more vehicles at the Nilackal parking area and provide light refreshments to devotees waiting in queues from Sharamkuthi to the hill top along the trekking path.
“Considering that about 20% of the devotees are children, the meeting also discussed a proposal to open separate queues for kids and elderly women. The Chief Minister has sought a scientific study on this before arriving at a decision,” Mr. Ananthagopan said.
An additional batch of 420 policemen would be deployed from Marakkottam to the Sannidhanam to regulate the crowd and experienced personnel would be posted on duty at the holy 18 steps to maintain the flow of devotees. “Further, devotees will be permitted to ascend the steps even after the Ayyappa temple closes for the day at 11.30 p.m. and offer darshan when it reopens the next day morning.”
About 19 lakh people had booked for darshan so far, of which, 14.5 lakh completed the pilgrimage till Sunday. A high-level meeting would be held once a week under Devaswom Minister K.Radhakrishnan to review the arrangements, including the cap on pilgrim visits, said Mr. Ananthagopan.
An official statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office noted that extension of the darshan hours would help ease congestion by facilitating darshan for more people. He also directed the TDB and the Pathanamthitta district administration to take steps for expanding the vehicle parking facility.
“The parking facility at Nilackal has been expanded and as many as 6,500 vehicles can be parked on 17 grounds at present,” it said.
Meanwhile, the influx of devotees to the temple continued unabated on Monday. Of the 1.19 lakh bookings for darshan, over 62,000 people visited the temple till 4 p.m.
