2.38 Lakh Visitors To Tirumala Shrine In July

About 2.38 lakh pilgrims from different places across the country had a darsan of Lord Venkateswara in the month of July, said Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) EO Anil Kumar Singhal.

Speaking to the media after the monthly Dial Your EO programme held at the Conference Hall in the TTD Administrative Building in Tirupati, the EO said that though there had been a dip in the number of footfalls to Tirumala due to increased Covid-19 cases across the country, the number of pilgrims had picked up over the past three days.

"On August 8, about 8,500 pilgrims had darsan against the quota of 9,000 tickets," he said.

The Hundi collections stood at Rs 16.69 crore in July, and the e-Hundi collections at Rs 3.97 crore, he added.

"We commenced e-Hundi collections recently for the Padmavathi temple, too, and so far Rs 8.15 lakhs have been received," he also added.

The EO said that the TTD was contemplating making SVBC advertisement-free upon requests from devotees across the world, and had commenced an SVBC Trust to make up for the loss as the TTD required Rs 3-4 crore annually for the maintenance of the channel.

"So far the Trust has received Rs 2.61 crore in the last three weeks," he said.

He further said that after reviewing the financial prospects, the TTD would likely commence even a HD version of the SVBC.