Online Booking System for Sai Baba's Darshan Queue at Shirdi

Aum Sai Ram

In the next 3 months, the Shri Sai Baba Sansthan, Shirdi Trust has decided to introduce an Online Booking System for Sai devotees which will give them an option of not standing in a queue for several hours to reach Sai Baba's Samadhi Shrine to pay their respect.

Those who Register Online will Not have to Stand in the Darshan Queue for more than an Hour. They will be told the approximate time when they can pay their respect and will be able to finish their visit within an hour of the time mentioned.
Those who do not book through this Booking System will have to stand in the regular Darshan Queue. Devotees will also be able to make Online bookings for Hostel Accommodation.

Shri.Jayant Sasane, Chairman of Shirdi Sai Sansthan said that, “To reduce the workload and improve crowd management, we are introducing the latest technology for Online Booking.
It will help reduce crowds in Shirdi and also save devotees time. Apart from creating more transparency in the Sansthan’s work, the project will also help us monitor the Devotee numbers,
the free Meals distributed and the Donations,”

He added that, “The facility may start in February 2011. It is a large project and we had floated a tender for the work. We have given the project to a leading software company and will be spending between Rs.20 crore and Rs.25 crore on the project."

The project is being supervised by K.V.Ramani, a Chennai-based entrepreneur and former chief of NASSCOM who has donated Rs.60 crore to the Shirdi Shrine to build a Hostel Complex to accommodate 16,000 devotees.

The Booking & Registration System is part of a larger software project called "SAITECH" that will connect all the Temple departments.

According to Rahul Galande, a senior official of the Trust’s I.T department, "The Project is being implemented by Cognizant, an I.T firm. The Company will look at the work for five years and train the Shirdi Sansthan staff to operate the system. We are creating a system for tracking the progress of Administrative work at the Trust. We are also creating an Online Information Centre."

The Shirdi Trust will set up one outlet each in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai where pilgrims, who do not have an credit card, can book accommodation at the pilgrim hostels.
When the system is in place, the Shrine will be second to Tirumala Tirupati to have an online booking facility.