Siddhivinayak temple to allow 1,000 devotees beginning November 16

The Siddhivinayak Temple Trust has prepared a mobile application through which devotees can book their appointments for darshan beginning Monday, Bandekar told reporters. "Devotees will have to download 'Shri Siddhivinayak temple' application on their mobile phones to book slots for darshan. They will need to fill in their details and book an appointment, following which a QR code will be generated with a time slot. QR codes for 1,000 people will be generated during the day," he said.

The reopening of the places of worship coincided with the Diwali 'Padwa', which is an important festival in the state. Early in the morning, devotees were seen visiting Lord Vitthal's temple at Pandharpur in Solapur, Saibaba's shrine in Shirdi, Goddess Tulja Bhavani's temple in Osmanabad and the Siddhivinayak temple and the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai.

The Sai Baba temple in Shirdi is set to welcome devotees from today after seven months of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are glad that the government has allowed us to open after so many months. Devotees who want to visit will have to do online booking to get a time-slot for the 'darshan'. Along with this, people will also have to show a COVID-negative RT-PCR result at the gate. Children aged eight to ten won't be allowed," a representative of the temple management said.

The temple trust will review the situation after two days and may allow more devotees to have darshan of Lord Ganesh based on the assessment, Bandekar said. "Senior citizens can download our mobile app, they can get darshan of Bappa live 24X7...hence, they should not hurry (into visiting the temple). Bappa is there to take care of you, but take care of yourselves," he said. Bandekar also said the trust has not said "no" to senior citizens for visiting the temple. "But, it should be avoided given the pandemic situation," he added.