Sabarimala up to 5,000 cans of Aravana amid the pilgrim rush

Appam and Aravana counter at Sabarimala (File) | Photo credit: H. VIBHU

With only hours to go before the ongoing month-long pilgrimage window closes, the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala is facing an acute shortage of Aravana with just over 5,000 tins of the offering in stock.

Around 17,000 devotees are expected at the temple before the temple closes at 10 pm on Monday. As many as 15,000 devotees have booked darshan online, with on-site bookings expected to take the total over 17,000.

In view of the shortage, the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) has already restricted the sale of Aravana to one tin per devotee, sparking protests among pilgrims in the last few days.

Aravana’s manufacturing plant at Sannidhanam remained closed for maintenance just before the hill shrine opened for the five-day lunar puja on September 16. However, the board failed to build up sufficient supplies of supply before starting work, exacerbating the shortage.

On Sunday too, the pilgrims were given only three packets of Appam and one can of Aravana. The shortage sparked protests, with pilgrims queuing for hours to receive a single can. The police had to intervene at times to calm the agitated devotees.

Crisis before the Makaravilakku season

The crisis comes just weeks before the annual Mandalam Makaravilakku pilgrimage season, which is scheduled to begin on November 16. As part of the preparations, work is now underway to increase the daily production capacity of the Aravana plant by approximately one million tins.

The expansion is expected to increase the plant’s daily capacity to around 3.25 lakh tins, TDB officials said. The plant currently has 26 preparation pans, six cooling chambers and six boilers with a daily production capacity of 2 to 2.25 million cans.

The TDB, meanwhile, also attributed the current shortage to the surge in the number of pilgrims, especially from other states, during the month-long puja.

“It is a fact that the board has rushed into the renovation of the Aravana plant as it cannot afford to face another shortage in the annual pilgrimage season. At the same time, we did not expect such a high number of pilgrims during this month-long puja and have planned our buffer stock based on last years’ trends,” the official said.

During the last pilgrimage season, TDB had to limit the sale of Aravana to 10 cans per devotee after demand exceeded the plant’s production capacity.

The ongoing reconstruction is expected to take approximately 40 days. The board expects to resume production by the second week of October and build a buffer stock of more than 50,000 tins before the start of the annual pilgrimage season.

Published – 21 Sep 2026 11:39 IST