Maharashtra: 15k devotees a day, online passes must at Shirdi

NASHIK: The Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust (SSST), Shirdi has said that online passes will be issued to devotees for temple visit once it reopens from October 7.
To prevent any overcrowding, only 15,000 devotees will be allowed for Saibaba darshan daily. Children below 10 years, pregnant women and citizens above 65 years of age would not be allowed for darshan. The trust on Tuesday issued detailed guidelines to be followed by devotees visiting the temple.
Temple trust chief executive officer Bhagyashree Banayat said devotees must follow the guidelines in view of the Covid pandemic. She appealed to the devotees to cooperate with the temple trust management.
Ahmednagar district collector Rajendra Bhosale chaired a meeting at Shirdi this afternoon to review the SSST’s preparations for reopening the temple.
The online passes can be availed by logging into online.sai.org.in. Of the 15,000 passes that would be available online on a daily basis, 10,000 would be free and 5,000 would be paid, said SSST officials.
The SSST managed prasadalaya will remain closed. A limited number of passes would be available for aartis on a daily basis.
“To ensure that there is no overcrowding, not more than 1,150 devotees would be allowed within the temple premises per hour. After darshan, the devotees have to move out of the temple premises as quickly as possible,” added SSST officials.
The darshan timing for devotees would be 6 am to 10 pm and carrying of flowers will be prohibited. Entry will be barred for those not wearing masks.
The SSST management has made arrangements for hand sanitisers for devotees within the temple premises and thermal scanning to check body temperature at the entry points.
The temple is reopening after six months. It was closed in the first week of April due to the second wave of the pandemic.