Kerala: On Saturday, thousands of followers of Lord Ayyappa flocked to the Sabarimala temple in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district to worship.

In conjunction with the annual Mandala-Makaravilakku festival, which kicked off the pilgrimage season, the temple opened its doors on November 15.

“I have come from Mumbai,” Anand, a devotee, told media report. For the last 26 years, I have been visiting Sabarimala on a regular basis. The progress made in Sabarimala is commendable. Transportation has come up, along with cleanliness, the environment, buildings, and infrastructure.

Speaking about the celebration, another devotee said, “We have come from Tamil Nadu, namely from the Tiruvannamalai area. We all made it safely to Sabarimala. This year, there were decent transportation options. A wonderful alternative that Sabarimala just presented is online registration.We had a successful darshan.

Another devotee, Kaushik, stated: “We are all from Bengaluru. For the last seven or eight years, we have been visiting this place. At 4 am, we all arrived at Pampa. This place has excellent amenities that are well-managed. The crowd is well-managed, and there isn’t much of it.Being at Sabarimala is a great experience.

The annual Mandalam-Makaravilakku pilgrimage season began Friday afternoon with the arrival of worshipers to Kerala’s Sabarimala shrine.
The temple’s sanctum sanctorum was inaugurated by PN Mahesh Namboothiri, the departing Melsanthi (head priest).

At the Ayyappa temple and the Malikappuram Devi temple, the recently appointed Melsanthis S. Arun Kumar Namboothiri and Vasudevan Namboothiri will formally take up their positions.

Kerala’s Devaswom Minister, VN Vasavan, gave an explanation of the government’s decision last month in response to the opposition’s call to restore spot reservations for the Sabarimala pilgrimage during the Mandala-Makaravilakku season.

Speaking to the legislative assembly, Vasavan clarified that in order to control the number of pilgrims and guarantee a more seamless pilgrimage experience, the state administration had chosen to use an online ticketing system.

VD Satheesan, the leader of the opposition, expressed disapproval of the online reservation system and asked the administration to reevaluate its choice. He contended that restricting admission to online bookings would prevent thousands of devotees from completing their 41-day vow and receiving darshan at the temple, since many devotees, particularly those from distant states, would not be acquainted with the online method.

Additionally, Satheesan said that before to 2018, all pilgrims were permitted admission to Sabarimala, and that the current absence of place reservations may result in hazardous congestion. Minister Vasavan replied that the subject had been reviewed in a virtual meeting led by the Chief Minister, who agreed to cap the daily pilgrimage at 80,000.

The Minister went on to say that prior experiences had shown that spot reservations resulted in congestion and made pilgrimage management difficult.

To guarantee everyone’s safety and a better experience, the government will depend on the virtual line booking system this year.The Minister then gave his word that the infrastructure and crowd control techniques required to govern the pilgrims’ movement would be implemented.