Only in Tamil Nadu temples you can find so many barricades setup to discriminate people based on their monetary power and segregate them based for payment to darshan. You can find minimum three queues like

  1. Public Darshan
  2. Special Darshan
  3. VIP Darshan

Temples at Sri Rangam are still worse with their dynamic pricing for even Public Darshan which are charged during specific periods.

Too much of barricades are a headache during special occasions like Shivarathri because people can not sit near sanctum sanctorum for the abhishekams etc.

The biggest reason for this monetary discrimination is that temples are owned by state administration and in order to pay for the expenses like salaries for staff they have to charge like this.

Additionally they do not ensure peace of pilgrims at darshan and involve in blatant pull and push at the sanctum sanctorums which is not a case in most other temples in other parts of India.

That said all the revenue generated goes for those authorities and the priests seems to be just vested with the meagre collections on their pooja plates.

It is time that the temples are freed from government clutches similar to churches and mosques under a separate authority to help maintain their sanctity.

It is no use petitioning to Government of Tamil Nadu regarding this even though it is the state temples that are affected by this issue and hence a petition has been sent to the office of Prime Minister vide PMOPG/E/2017/0385912 .