Speculations are rife that the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD) Executive Officer (EO) I Y R Krishna Rao will soon be replaced. These rumours come in the wake of the several irregularities that surfaced in the functioning of the trust, and the discontent expressed by priests over the attitude of the EO.
The possibility of the replacement of IYR as the EO of TTD has been in question ever since dharnas were staged and protests conducted in front of the TTD administrative building in April 2011.
The case of a 13-year-old falling victim to sexual harassment at the hands of his senior at one of the 2 TTD-run Veda Patashalas is a case in point. A month after the victim's parents withdrew their ward from the school and complained about the harassment, the 4 senior students involved were rusticated.
Upon investigating the case, it was found that a number of other students aged between 8 and 10 were also abused by their seniors.
It has been reported that the victims were forcibly made to watch obscene video clips, and were subjected to deviant behaviour on the part of the seniors.
The TTD responded to this shocking revelation by shifting juniors to a separate accomodation, and appointing a teacher to look over groups of 12 students each.
The friction between the priests of the Venkateswara Temple and the EO owes its origin to Krishna Rao's decision to
introduce moving platforms to expedite the darshan process. He had stated that the moving platforms would be employed on those occassions when the inflow of devotees was greater than usual.
Devotees are known to have to stand in impossibly long queues for more than 15 hours to catch a glimpse of the Lord. However, the priests were against the utilisation of moving platforms, for they believed it to be blasphemous in nature.