The world famous Shiridi Sai Baba temple is going hi-tech with a plan of installing moving walkways or travelators, like the escalators usually found in airports and commercial complexes, for facilitating quick and hassle-free darshan for lakhs of devotees visiting it.

The moving walkways can transport thousands of people simultaneously, horizontally or on an incline reducing the darshan time of the devotees by several hours. The famous temple is regularly visited by more than 60,000 devotees in normal days and more on festive occasions.
The walkways would be fitted with slow conveyors and would look similar to escalators.

The Rs.60 project will see the installation of the walkways at the old ‘prasadalay’, a stone’s throw away from the main temple complex where the larger-than-life size statue of Sai Baba is installed, according to Jayant Sasane, chairman of the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust Shirdi (SSST).

He said normally it takes not less than 11 to 12 hours to have Darshan of the Lord in queues but the walkways would reduce the darshan time to a mere one hour.

Mr Sasane said the famous architect Hafeez Contractor of Mumbai has been signed up to prepare a master plan for the new darshan complex which will include the walkways. “On an average, each travelator or walkway can carry nearly 25, 000 people freely. The number of walkways to be installed will be known only after the master plan is prepared,” he explained.