Tirumala, August 10, 2013: After a brief lull for nine days owing to the relentless agitations against the creation of a separate State that rocked the Seemandhra region, the hill temple of Lord Venkateswara on Friday woke up to a sudden emergence of pilgrim crowd.

The impact of the crowd was first felt at Alipiri security point down Tirupati where a large number of vehicles were stranded since the small hours of the day. The spate in the crowd could be gauged by the fact that it took more than one hour for the commuters to secure the mandatory toll pass at the security point. Both the massive darshan complexes, which together hold over 30,000 pilgrims in one sitting, were full to their capacity and the queue lines spilled on to the road for over 3 to 4 km.

While the waiting time for the devotees in the ordinary queue lines stretched beyond 22 hours, it was over 14 hours for those in the Rs.300 special entry darshan lines.

Source: The Hindu, DT. August 10, 2013.