The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) determined to extend the ‘darshan’ timings at the Lord Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala on Sunday. According to the realease, the darshan timings shall be elevated by an hour amid an influx of devorees.
The Board determined to change the darshan timings within the second half of the day from 3 pm to 11 pm as a substitute of from 4 pm to 11 pm, an official from the district administration stated. The official additionally stated that water and biscuits had been being supplied to devotees ready within the queues for darshan.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition within the Assembly V D Sathessan alleged the amenities for devotees had been insufficient with pilgrims having to attend 15 to twenty hours for darshan. He claimed that devotees weren’t even being supplied water.
Satheesan additionally claimed that not sufficient police personnel have been deployed at Sabarimala for helping the devotees, tips of the Kerala High Court relating to preparations for pilgrims haven’t been carried out and even satisfactory ambulance providers weren’t out there.
He contended that if quick steps weren’t taken, there could be a extreme disaster for devotees at Sabarimala and urged the state authorities to take the matter severely. Many devotees had been seen on TV channels complaining that they’ve been standing within the queues for greater than 10-12 hours for darshan.
Pilgrims had been additionally seen caught in site visitors jams alongside the path to Sabarimala. IG Sparjan Kumar, who’s supervising the safety preparations at Sabarimala, stated that police requested the TDB to limit the quantity of devotees to 75,000 per day.
He stated that through the current third part of the pilgrimage, the quantity of devotees shot up with round 90,000 bookings being made via digital queue and almost 30,000 through spot reserving every day. In addition, there are extra youngsters, ladies and aged individuals this time and these have affected the efforts to make devotees climb the Pathinettampadi (18 divine steps) rapidly, the officer stated.
The annual 41-day Mandalam-Makaravilakkku pilgrimage to the hill-top shrine started on November 16, the primary day of the auspicious Malayalam month of Vrichikam. In order to make sure a protected and clean pilgrimage for all devotees, the federal government had launched a dynamic queue-control system this season to handle crowding at ‘sannidhanam’.
