In the Tirupati Balaji temple of Andhra Pradesh, the beauty of the devotees is slowly returning. The number of people who visit every day has now reached 15 thousand. On Sunday, September 6, after the lockdown was removed in the temple, for the first time a record donation of one crore was also made. Till now the average of donations was between 50 to 60 lakhs a day, but since 28 August both the number of visitors and the amount of donations have gone up.
However, this amount is still less than half of the donations that came before the Corona period, but the trust is quite excited to see people's faith in the temple even in these difficult times. The trust hopes that by the end of this year, conditions will improve considerably, the number of devotees in the temple will increase further.
Meanwhile, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams(TTD) on 28 August decided to start work on a multi crore replica of the Lord Venkateswara temple at Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, immediately after the situation brought about by COVID-19 returns to normal. Y V Subba Reddy, chairman of TTD, which governs the famous hill shrine at nearby Tirumala, said that the TTD, along with Varanasi, would also begin construction of such temples in Jammu and Kashmir, Mumbai and Chennai.
Due to lockdown restrictions, the first Brahmotsavam would be conducted without the participation of devotees, while TTD has not yet taken a decision on the matter for the second Brahmotsavam, he said.
The temple was closed to the general public on 20 March due to Corona. Darshan started again on June 11 after 80 days. Although the temple was opened only on 8 June, the first three days were allowed only for the temple staff and their families. As soon as the darshan opened on 11 June, a donation of about 43 lakh rupees came in one day, 6000 people had seen that day.
Number of Devotees
March, when there was no lockdown on 19 March, then 42 thousand people visited and that day got about 2.24 crores rupees. From 11 to 19 March, donations of about 2 crore rupees were coming every day. Everyday between 1 and 10 March, about 50 to 60 thousand people visited and the figure of donations was more than 3 crore rupees every day.
Covid Cases in Temple
started on 11 June, since the temple opened, the debate also started whether it was necessary to open the temple or not. Reports of the trust's employees started coming positive as soon as the temple opened. Around 80 workers were infected in June, whose number increased to around 750 by August. But, there were no darshans in the temple and no devotees.
During this time the former head priest of the temple also died from Corona. The temple trust has a total of 21 thousand employees. Employees and priests over 60 years of age are not allowed to visit the temple due to the Corona Guide Line. The good thing is that even after so many employees in the temple were corona positive, not a single devotee was infected.