Sabarimala to offer 24-hour room bookings soon; flawless portal underway

Thiruvananthapuram: The Devaswom Board is updating its online room booking portal for Sabarimala Sannidhanam. The action comes after flaws were discovered in the tdbonline.org portal, which has been in operation since 2016. The upgrade is being carried out under the supervision of the state IT infrastructure agency, KSITIL (Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Limited).

Current booking facility to be available

Under the new portal, 500 rooms will be made available through online booking. Rooms can be booked 24 hours a day. The new portal will feature a 'current booking' facility, similar to the system used by the railways.

The Devaswom Vigilance had previously discovered that when bookings opened last month, 400 rooms were secured within an hour by travel agencies and middlemen. The primary shortcoming of the existing system is that anyone can book as many rooms as they wish by providing any arbitrary ID.

QR code will suffice

The current practice of paying money at the accommodation office and proceeding to the room with a paper receipt will change. Instead, pilgrims can head straight to their rooms using a digital booking record. Caretakers equipped with tablets will be stationed in each building, and entry to rooms will only be permitted after scanning the QR code. The portal will also feature an arrangement enabling pilgrims aged 60 and above to secure ground-floor rooms.

If all rooms are fully booked, users will be able to register for alerts to receive notifications as soon as a room becomes vacant. A cancellation facility will also be provided. The updated portal will become operational only after the commencement of the Mandala season pilgrimage.