Tirumala: Annaprasadam For 1.2 Lakh Pilgrims Now

Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu today inaugurated an advanced and furnished kitchen on the Outer Ring Road on the rear side of the Panchajanyam Rest House in Tirumala.

The centralized kitchen costing Rs 13.45 crore has been constructed in a plinth area of 37,245 sq ft, and has modern facilities for storing food grains, vegetables and milk, and for cooking including steam-based cooking with boilers run by LPG, and an exhaust system for providing ambient weather for the workers.

The new centralized kitchen can serve upto 1.2 lakh pilgrims, which will help whenever there is a heavy influx of pilgrims - usually during holidays and in the weekends.

Naidu also held a review meeting with TTD officials on various activities. The meeting took place at the SPRH. He emphasised that the devotees' feedback on the TTD's services should be collected in a focused manner, and the feasibility of their implementation studied. He asked Endowments Minister Anam Ramnarayan Reddy to implement a mechanism for collecting feedback from the devotees at all the premier temples for improving facilities to the pilgrims.

He also instructed the TTD officials to focus on elevating and promoting the glory and sanctity of, and reinforcing the devotees' faith in, the Tirumala shrine, and said that only Govinda Nama Smarana should resound in Tirumala.

Naidu also directed officials to make advance plans for water availability, increase the forest coverage from the present 72% to 80% in a 5-year span, take bio-diversity protection measures for the TTD forests, and continue ensuring the current good quality of laddu and the Anna Prasadam as the devotees were happy with them, using the best quality raw materials in their preparation.

TTD EO J Shyamala Rao and Additional EO Venkaiah Choudhary were also present.