Much to the excitement of several lakh devotees across the country, the mandala puja at Sabarimala will be held on Tuesday at 11 am. The arrangements for the mandala puja will be in full swing after the ceremonial Thanka Anki (sacred attire) procession reaches the Sabarimala temple on Monday evening.

The procession is said to begin after pujas at the Pamba Ganapathy temple around 3 pm. The procession is expected to reach the temple shrine by around 6 pm before deeparadhana on Monday. After the Mandala puja on Tuesday, the temple shrine will remain closed till Makaravilakku festival on December 30, reports TOI.

Meanwhile Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president A Padmakumar has said that nearly 60 lakh pilgrims have offered their prayers at the Lord Ayyappa temple till Saturday. He also added that the total revenue of the temple during the period, was a whopping sum of 159 crore, reports The New Indian Express.

This was a 20% increase in total revenue, compared to the same period in the previous season.

Padmakumar also expressed his concern over the former Devaswom employees conspiring to find fault with the new TDB.

“TDB will soon order a Vigilance probe into the activities of its employees who stood against the interests of TDB authorities and institutions under it,” Padmakumar said.

“A section of employees with political interests are unleashing malicious campaign against TDB member K Raghavan,” he told Express.

Meanwhile police and security personnel are finding it difficult to cope with the unprecedented rush for the pilgrimage season.

The long serpentine queues have made the pilgrims from across the country wait nearly for 10 hours to get darshan. The police personnel have taken adequate measures by blocking the pilgrims at various points to avoid overcrowding and stampede.