TTD EO K S Jawahar Reddy today announced that only the devotees who had the required entry tickets would be allowed to visit the Sri Venkateswara Swamy vaari temple in Tirupati for the Vaikuntha Dwara darsanams starting on December 25.
After inspecting the arrangements for the same, the EO said that the TTD had already clarified that only
a limited number of devotees would be allowed to visit the temple for the darsanams this year, owing to the health concerns raised by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
"Due to the current pandemic, a limited number of devotees will be allowed to visit the temple for the darsanams this year. To restrict the number of visitors, a strict ticketing system has been implemented under which only those devotees who have the entry tickets will be allowed into the temple. We have tried to provide tickets to both local and non-local devotees, and have already issued two lakh tickets online to non-local devotees. An additional one lakh tickets will be issued to local devotees as well," he said.
Reddy also reiterated the TTD's earlier appeal to the devotees to not come to the temple without tickets, explaining that doing so would not only cause potential health risks but would also impact the law and order situation of the temple town negatively.
Other TTD officials including Additional EO A V Dharma Reddy, Deputy EO Harindranath, CVSO Gopinath Jatti and chief engineer Ramesh Reddy also participated in the inspection.
Apart from restricting the number of visitors this year, the TTD has also staggered the darsanams over ten days instead of the usual two to ensure that social distancing can be maintained in the temple.