Taking a serious note of the crowd flow to Sabarimala that continues unabated, authorities are bringing in rapid measures to keep the rush under check ahead of the Makaravilakku festival.
In a bid to slow down the influx of pilgrims, the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) has now decided to wind up its spot booking window completely from January 10 – five days ahead of the Makaravilakku festival. The virtual queue bookings for January 14 will be limited to 50,000, while the ceiling will be brought down by another 10,000 for the following day.
“Pilgrims usually begin camping on the hillock at least three days prior to the festival to watch the Makaravilakku and the Thiruvabharanam procession. Given this backdrop, there is a need to regulate the inflow to ensure overall safety,” said P.S. Prashanth, president, TDB.
In view of the heavy rush, he said it would be ideal for women devotees and children to avoid visiting Sabarimala on January 14 and 15.
The TDB, according to him, has made arrangements to accommodate more number of pilgrims for the five days after the festival. The board, at the same time, has also made the virtual queue bookings mandatory for pilgrims visiting the temple.
The latest decisions come on the heels of the Pathanamthitta District Police serving a letter to the TDB, seeking to limit the virtual queue bookings in the run-up to the Makaravilakku festival. In his letter, District Police Chief V. Ajith had asked the TDB to limit the bookings to 40,000 and 20,000 on January 14 and 15 respectively.
The department had also called for urgent steps to wind up the spot booking facility at Pampa and instead limit its operation at Nilackal alone. The police had also pointed out the risk involved in accommodating a crowd much beyond its capacity on the temple premises.
The pilgrimage zone, from Nilackal to Sannidhanam, has been teeming with pilgrims since the temple reopened on December 30 for the Makaravilakku festival. As per official estimates, 78402 devotees made their way to the temple through the virtual queue route on January 1 alone.
Traffic hit
The delay in clearing the backlog at the pilgrimage zone during the day, meanwhile, once again affected the traffic to the hillock, with the police regulating the onward journey of vehicles from various stopover points.
With the tailbacks stretching for several kilometres, people resorted to protests at Erumely.
The first phase of the pilgrimage between November 16 and December 27 too had been marked by similar events in different cycles.
