With a decline in daily COVID-19 cases, the Ahmednagar district administration in Maharashtra has now decided to allow as many as 10,000 devotees with offline passes to worship Saibaba at the famous Shirdi shrine, per day.
Earlier on October 6, the district administration in an order had allowed 15,000 devotees who possessed online passes to take darshan per day. However, in view of the fall in the cases, a proposal to allow more devotees possessing offline passes was received by authorities.
As the online booking for 15,000 devotees will continue, it means a total of 25,000 devotees can now take darshan of Saibaba every day.
"As per the decision, taken in a meeting, the Saibaba Temple Trust has been permitted to allow 10,000 devotees on daily basis through the offline system while following all the COVID-19 norms," said the official order issued by Ahmednagar district collector Rajendra Bhosale.
The temple trust will have to give an undertaking that it would be following all the COVID-19 rules prescribed by the administration and the Maharashtra government, it said.
During pre-pandemic times, lakhs of devotees used to visit Shirdi every day.
Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust said it will set up counters in Shirdi for distributing free offline passes for devotees who have to show their Aadhaar cards.
The number of COVID-19 infections in Maharashtra continues to remain under 1,000 per day.
On Tuesday, the state reported 886 coronavirus positive cases and 34 fatalities, taking the tally to 66,25,872 and the toll to 1,40,636, as per the health department.
(With inputs from PTI)
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