TTD to employ AI, facial recognition tech to enhance pilgrimage experience

TTD executive officer (EO) J Syamala Rao said the temple body will employ these technologies to authenticate genuine pilgrims for ensuring a smooth darshan, prevent impersonation and fraudulent activities and ease accommodation

Tirupati: The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), the official custodian of the famous Venkateswara temple here, is exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and facial recognition technology to enhance the pilgrimage experience, said an official on Thursday.

TTD executive officer (EO) J Syamala Rao said the temple body will employ these technologies to authenticate genuine pilgrims for ensuring a smooth darshan (visit to deity), prevent impersonation and fraudulent activities and ease accommodation, access control and other operations.

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“TTD envisioned adopting the latest technological solutions available in the market including Artificial Intelligence to improve the overall pilgrimage,” said Rao in a press release.

As part of these futuristic initiatives, the EO said pilgrims will be provided with time slotted darshan tokens, which will capture their facial features using facial recognition technology.

On capturing a pilgrim’s image, he said it will be sieved through data from the past 30 days or about 10 lakh images to root out duplicate bookings and thereby enable servicing more number of pilgrims.

By implementing this solution, token issue and verification process becomes quick and hassle-free while impersonation and fraudulent activities can be prevented, said Rao. AI and facial recognition technology are also contemplated to track pilgrim numbers at various locations such as queue lines, compartments and inside the Tirumala temple, among others.

The installation of AI-powered facial recognition cameras are expected to power this facial detection, said Rao. “This solution leverages TTD management to exactly assess the probable darshan time expected for the pilgrims who are waiting and also can assess the darshan time for pilgrims joining queue lines,” he said.

Powered by this tech, the temple body will be equipped to notify pilgrims of the expected darshan time so as to empower them to properly plan their pilgrimages.

Installed across darshan paths in the temple, TTD can estimate the time taken to complete darshan under various categories and also fix gaps in operations. Further, AI and facial recognition cameras will come in handy to track and identify intruders in Tirumala at exact locations. Eventually, the EO observed that facial recognition technology will be extended to all possible TTD services.