A large number of people throng Sabarimala Ayappa Swamy temple as a record booking of over 1 lakh pilgrims booked for darshan on Monday was witnessed. According to temple officials, 1,07,260 devotees have booked tickets for darshan on Monday. In the ongoing pilgrimage season, over 2.5 lakh devotees visited the Ayappa temple in the first six days till November 24, 2022
"Devotees will be escorted from Pampa to Sannidhanam in a controlled and segmented manner. Police officers have been deployed at each point for this purpose. The segment rotation is a precautionary measure to avoid any untoward incident due to the crowding of devotees. Devotees waiting in the queue will be provided light food and drinking water. Apart from the police, the services of RAF and NDRF personnel will also be used to control the traffic," Sabarimala Special Officer Harishchandra Naik said, as quoted by news agency ANI.
Meanwhile, the Kerala government on Monday (December 12) decided to restrict the daily footfall while assuring a "trouble-free pilgrimage". The meeting chaired by CM Pinarayi Vijayan, decided to restrict footfall in Sabarimala temple to 90,000.
The meeting was convened in view of the Kerala High Court's directive that suggested ways to control the rush at the temple. Meanwhile, it was also decided to increase the darshan timing by an hour. The temple which opens at 3 AM will be closed to 11.30 PM.
It was also decided in the meeting to that the concerned department heads along with the department officials will hold review meetings on a weekly basis.
On Monday too the temple witnessed heavy footfall as a record 1.19 lakh darshan tickets were booked, said temple authorities as per Hindustan Times report. Owing to the influx of tourists, the connecting roads to hill shrine were clogged since Sunday night.