TTD to resume Divya Darshan for pedestrian devotees

Tirupati: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) will soon resume Divya Darshan for the convenience of devotees, who come by foot to Tirumala through the two pedestrian paths Alipiri to Tirumala and Srivarimettu to Tirumala.

Responding to the requests of the pilgrims in the monthly 'Dial Your EO' programme in Tirumala on Friday, TTD Executive officer A V Dharma Reddy said that the TTD will soon resume the issuing of Divya darshan tokens on the two footpaths to pedestrian pilgrims after making the required changes in the system so as to ensure the tokens are issued only to those pilgrims, who have no other darshan tickets. Elaborating, the EO said if any pilgrim, who had already availed SSD (time slotted sarva darshan) token issued in Tirupati or Rs 300 SED (special entry darshan) tickets booked in advance online, will not be issued Divya Darshan tokens. In other words, Divya Darshan tokens will be issued only to those pilgrims who have no darshan tickets including the free SSD tokens. This was to avoid the pilgrims availing more than one darshan in a day to facilitate more number of devotees have darshan, he explained.

It may be recalled the TTD has suspended issuing of Divya Darshan tokens due to Corona pandemic and it was not resumed after normalcy restored resulting in the pilgrims seeking the TTD to resume the facility for the convenience of pilgrims on foot. Similarly, the TTD is contemplating to make Aadhaar as sole identity proof for issuing Seva tickets for darshan in order to provide darshan to large number of devotees.

This will help more pilgrims avail SED or Arjitha Seva tickets for darshan. In the hour-long interactive programme, the EO received 26 calls on various issues including lauding TTD for its perfect system of providing facilities to pilgrims in Tirumala while some complained on poor maintenance of toilets in some areas. While some lamented that they were not able to get Seva tickets in electronic dip system while some able to get again and again and also not able to book SED tickets online with the tickets exhausted within hour, requesting TTD to see that same person getting tickets more than once in a moth to enable others get darshan tickets.