The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) on Tuesday lifted the ban on issuance of offline slotted Sarva Darshan (SSD) tokens for common pilgrims and allowed them to have direct darshan of the deity.
With the hill city witnessing a higher-than-normal footfall in the past few days on Tuesday morning, darshan ticket counters in Tirupati witnessed hustle and bustle among devotees.
Controlling the crowd became a difficult task for TTD as the crowd kept on increasing with time. As an immediate measure to decongest the crowd and bring the situation under control, the TTD allowed pilgrims to visit the Vaikuntham queue complex for darshan of the deity on a first-come-first-served basis, which is pre-COVID. was prevalent during Times. Devotees were last allowed to enter the Vaikuntham queue complex on March 20, 2020.
The TTD deployed security personnel in the queue and also asked the staff of the Nitya Annadanam complex to deal with the huge crowd.
It is not yet known whether the system of allowing devotees to travel to Tirumala without tokens is a permanent or an ad-hoc measure.