Thiruvananthapuram: Owing to the 10-day annual temple festival, the Sabarimala Ayyappa shrine will be opened from 11 to 21 March.
Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), administering the hill temple, issued a statement that head priest Kandararu Rajeevaru would preside over the temple opening ceremony. The temple is said to get a new gold-plated door for the sanctum sanctorum as the existing door had developed tiny cracks.
TDB president A Padmakumar said that the new door has been made of quality teak wood and plated with at least four kilograms of gold after engraving and embossing it with copper. The expenses of the new door has been bared by a group of devotees as an offering to the presiding deity.
The Lord Ayyappa Temple had recently witnessed frenzied protests by devotees opposing the implementation of the landmark 28 September Supreme Court verdict permitting women of all age groups into the temple.
