The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam has opened slots for darshan at the hill-shrine of Lord Venkateswara in Andhra Pradesh’s Tirumala and released 460,000 tickets online for the month of January, according to reports.
The temple, which was closed amid the coronavirus pandemic, is now allowing devotees to visit the shrine by adhering to Covid protocols after two years. TTD started releasing the slotted Sarvadarshana (SSD) tokens for the month of January on the official website of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) from 9 am on Monday.
Devotees can buy tickets both in the online and offline mode. The ticket will cost ₹1 crore and for Friday pilgrims will have to pay ₹1.50 crore, according to a report.
The board is planning to use the funds for three major projects, including the construction of a super-speciality children’s hospital, reports suggest.
On December 25, the board’s website received 14 lakh visitors just after the ticket release announcement and the entire slot was booked within 55 minutes.
The board has released 20,000 tickets per day for January 1 and January 13 to 22 and 12,000 per day from January 2 to 12 and January 23 to 31. On the other hand, it released 5,500 virtual service tickets online for January 1, 2, 13, 22, and 26, all of which were booked within minutes.
The temple board has mandated a certificate of vaccination with both doses of the Covid-19 jab for devotees or a negative Covid-19 report for darshan.
It has also implemented new guidelines amid the surge in the Covid-19 cases while also keeping in mind the increase in the number of devotees. Authorities have directed devotees to book their tickets with Aadhaar card details.
Udayasthamana Arjitha Seva was launched in 1981 but stopped in 1995 before being officially wound up in 2006. When first introduced, tickets were priced at ₹1 lakh. The board sold around 2,600 tickets. However, 531 tickets have been left unutilised.
Now, the board has decided to allot these tickets, the reports said.