As part of precautionary stepsagainst coronavirus threat, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams that manages the Lord Venkateswara shrine near here on Tuesday began issuing time slot tokens to devotees for darshan.Devotees were not allowed to sit in compartments of massive queue complexes on the hills to avoid person-to-person contact and instead were issued time tokens.About 33,000 devotees were issued tokens before dawn, a temple official said.Even at the massive pilgrim free meal canteen, devotees were made to sit at a distance of more than a metre from each other, the official added.He also said for the past one week, inflow of devotees to the hills from different parts of the country has gradually been receding due to the virus scare.
