Hyderabad: Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD) on Wednesday made it mandatory for devotees to be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 to get lord Balaji's darshan. It also said that devotees can also display their Covid negative certificates which doesn't dates older than three days. Also, the TTD has announced that free darshan tickets would be available online from the September 25 due to the Covid threat.
Earlier, YV Subbareddy, chairman of the board of trustees, had chaired a meeting with the temple officials and decided that free darshan tokens issued in person at Tirupati would be canceled and fresh free tokens would be issued online.
He also said that only 15,000 to 20,000 devotees would be allowed for offering prayers per day in the temple during the annual Brahmotsava ceremony next month.
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Since the first lockdown there has been a very little count of people at Tirumala temple which was unprecedented. As the Covid curve flattened after the first wave, the temple trust has opened up for more devotees but as second wave upped the ante of infection rate, the temple imposed restriction on the count of devotees per day. Now again as the numbers came down, temple is opening up for people.
Till now, free darshan wasn't allowed since the lockdown was imposed. Only devotees who booked online tickets of special darshan worth Rs 300 and VIPs were allowed. To have a check, the TTD has decided to free darshan for local people and they could estiate that there is no issue of Covid. Following this, the TTD has given permission to all devotees from across the country for darshan from the September 25.
The TTD in a release said, "Devotees from all over the country have been given permission to perform Swami Darshan at the Tirumala temple. Devotees will be allowed to darshan at the temple till 11.30 PM. The number of free darshan tickets on a daily basis are being increased from 2,000 to 8,000."