Kochi: The famous Sabarimala temple located in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala opened to devotees on Wednesday for Chithira Attvish puja amid the global epidemic Coronavirus. Travancore Devasam Board has said that the temple will be closed at 9 pm after the puja. Devotees will be allowed to enter the temple under the virtual queue booking system.

Devotees will have to show a vaccination certificate or a negative report of RT-PCR tests to visit the temple, which should not be more than 72 hours old. The Sabarimala temple will be opened for two months on November 15. Kerala Devaswom Minister K Radhakrishnan had said that the entire arrangement for the annual Sabarimala pilgrimage would be completed in a time-bound manner. Radhakrishna was addressing the media after a high-level evaluation meeting held at Pampa near here to review arrangements in Pathanamthitta, Kottayam and Idukki districts. He directed various government departments to formulate a joint action plan and hand it over to the government before the annual pilgrimage season.

He further said, 'The arrangements will be completed in a time-bound manner. This year also, due to the epidemic, pilgrimage has been allowed through digital queues. We have restricted the number of pilgrims to the temple to 25,000 per day. This time more than 10 lakh devotees have already registered for the pilgrimage.'

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