Deoghar, July 23: Bar-coded wristbands, allotting a specified time slot to each pilgrim, didn’t quite work to regulate the flow of the faithful at Baidyanath Dham on the first day of Shravani Mela today, leaving authorities flummoxed on crowd control.

If the debut of new measure was unsuccessful, authorities maintained it was more due to pilgrims’ lack of awareness rather than the system’s inefficiency. The district administration hopes things will fall into place in a couple of days.

Over 65,000 pilgrims turned up to offer puja on the first day of the month-long festival, but very few were aware of the system that had been introduced.

Wristbands with bar codes are available for Rs 10 at kiosks that line the route of pilgrims between Deoghar town and the temple. The pilgrims are then supposed to approach any of the several “decoding” kiosks to collect their suvidha passes.

The passes mention the time they are to reach Nehru Park near Shivaganga and form a queue to enter the temple premises.

Since most were unable to follow the system, a huge crowd of pilgrims choked the temple’s entry point, forcing police to resort to mild lathicharge to control the surge of pilgrims.

“This was the first time we introduced the time slot system. But, pilgrims failed to queue up at the allotted time to offer puja,” Deoghar deputy commissioner Rahul Purwar told The Telegraph, adding that they were either too early or too late in reaching the centres.

“As such, the number of pilgrims increased considerably at Nehru Park from where they were supposed to queue up to enter the temple premises,” he explained.

Many pilgrims complained that several computers at kiosks set up to activate the barcode of wristbands developed snags, forcing volunteers to issue time slots to devotees manually.

This added to the confusion.

“I reached Nehru Park exactly at 2 pm, the time allotted to me. But, there was already a 2km-long queue of pilgrims,” said Janardan Mishra of Hajipur, debunking the new system as “useless”.

The new system of “arghya”, or holy offering, did not go down well with a section of the devotees, too. A metal vessel, or arghya, has been put up outside the sanctum sanctorum, enabling devotees to pour Gangajal which is then channelled to the Shivling inside.

The idea was to decongest the sanctum sanctorum.

“We were not allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum this time. Hence, we failed to have a glimpse of Lord Shiva,” rued Shivkumar Yadav who had come from Samastipur in Bihar.

But there were those who liked the new system as it ensured that the Gangajal offered by them was passed on to the Lord.

“The last time, I failed to enter the sanctum sanctorum owing to the huge crowd and had to throw the vessel onto the outer wall of the temple,” recalled Rupa Devi of Bhagalpur (Bihar).