Aadhaar card must for ritual at Tirupati’s Lord Venkateswara temple

The cards will prevent devotees from performing the ritual repeatedly, he said.

Authorities at Tirupati’s Lord Venkateswara temple will ask visitors for their Aadhaar cards before they allow a ritual in which devotees roll on the shrine’s floor.

Tirupati’s Lord Venkateswara is perhaps the richest temple in the country.

Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, which manages the temple in Andhra Pradesh, said the rule for ‘angapradakshinam’ will be implemented from July 20, said said Talari Ravi, the shrines’s public relations officer.

The cards will prevent devotees from performing the ritual repeatedly, he said.

“Aadhaar details are to be recorded before tickets are issued to the devotees doing Angapradakshinam,” he said.

Angapradakshinam around the sanctum sanctorum, measuring about 500 feet, has been observed by devotees on the hills for

over 2,000 years.