Tirumala witnesses heavy summer rush

Tirupati : The summer rush in Tirumala swelled on Thursday resulting in the two massive queue complexes full to the brim leading to the queue line stretching outside the complex. With the pouring pilgrim crowd, the queue line which reached Narayanagiri gardens after the queue complexes were full to their capacity, filled all the sheds in the gardens leading to the line extended to outer ring road, 4-km-long from outside the queue complex.

Sources said that with the rush to remain unabated on Saturday and Sunday, the waiting time for the tokenless devotees which is more than 30 hours on Thursday will increase further.

The sudden downpour that lashed Tirumala for an hour added more to the woes of the pilgrims waiting in the queue lines. The heavy rush had its impact in other areas, including the Annadanama complex, Kalyanakatta (tonsure centre) where people were forced to wait for long and also on RTC bus station where people jostled with each other to get into the buses to return home.

In the two pedestrian paths, Alipiri and Srivari Mettu, there is virtually no gap in the pilgrim movements right from the origin to the end at Tirumala with thousands trekking the hills through the footpath to reach Tirumala. The private jeep and taxi operators had a field day with the swelling rush as many preferred private transport to reach Tirumala, to avoid rush in the RTC buses. TTD on its part made elaborate arrangements to cope with the rush as it was not unexpected. Sources said that the rush will reach its peak in the coming days with private schools to reopen in June first week, as the families naturally complete the pilgrimage well before the schools start. Meanwhile, temple sources said that 77,436 people had darshan on Tuesday which increased to 79,207 on Thursday.