As the number of visiting devotees has been increasing every passing day, Sabarimalai Lord Sri Ayyappan Temple Dewaswom Board has announced that ONLINE BOOKING FOR DARSHAN ON 19TH DECEMBER (MONDAY) IS CANCELLED!
As more devotees compared to the average booking have booked ONLINE, registration has been stopped for this day! As such, it has been notified that the devotees who had booked for Darshan on 19th December earlier will be allowed to have Darshan!
The corridors of the Sabarimalai Lord Sri Ayyappan Temple were opened on 16th November at 5.00 PM for the special occasion of Makara Vilakku Pooja and Mandala Poojas! During the past 2 years, due to the impact of the raging coronavirus pandemic, the number of visitors was rather low in this period!
However, presently, with all restrictions relaxed, the number of devotees visiting Sabarimalai for the Darshan of Lord Sri Ayyappan has been increasing with every passing day!
NOTE THAT OVER THE LAST 30 DAYS ALONE, AROUND 20 LAKHS DEVOTEES HAD DARSHAN OF LORD SRI AYYAPPAN AT THE SABARIMALA TEMPLE!
The system of booking for Darshan ONLINE was introduced for the benefit of the devotees! It is worth noting that even on the ONLINE booking system for Darshan, over 1 Lakh devotees book for Darshan!
With this huge level of booking and Darshan, a review meeting on the situation was conducted by the State Government of Kerala presided over by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. During this review meeting, it was decided to extend the daily Darshan hours. As such, it has been announced that the temple corridors will be closed at 1.30 PM instead of the current 1.00 PM and 11.30 PM instead of the usual 11.00 PM.
In this situation, an appeal was made by the Kerala State Department of Police to reduce the number of devotees permitted! As such, a target/upper limit has been set that only up to a maximum of 90000 devotees will be permitted to have Darshan every day!
However, it has been informed on behalf of the Dewaswom Board that it may not be possible to reduce the number of devotees visiting for Darshan of Lord Sri Ayyappan at the Sabarimalai temple!