The TTD yesterday lambasted certain media houses for allegedly publishing "false reports" about the temple body that were leaving devotees "confused".
The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which is the body that manages the famed Lord Venkateswara temple in Tirumala, yesterday lashed out at certain media houses for allegedly publishing "false reports" about the temple body that were leaving devotees "confused".
In a press statement, the TTD termed the media reports false, and assured its devotees that it had not stopped any free services in Tirumala.
Explaining further, the statement revealed that before March 2020, there were a total of 176 laddu prasadam and darshan token issuing counters, SSD counters, and SED counters at Tirumala as well as the Alipiri toll gate counter at Tirupati. Out of these, 86 were run by Trilok Security Systems, 40 by various banks, 18 by laddu sevaks, and 29 by FM agencies. However, when Trilok withdrew its services, other banks also followed suit. The laddu sevaks too packed up their counters.
It added that currently, only two banks were running a total of 16 counters, and that even these two had been "pressurising" the TTD saying they too would withdrawal their services.
The communique also stated that at this juncture, in order to provide more transparency to devotees about the running of the counters, the temple body had called for tenders - KVM Info, a Bengaluru-based firm, quoted the lowest bid in their tender at Rs 11,402 per shift, per counter as against the previous value of Rs 12,345 (both values quoted do not include GST charges).
Further, the TTD stated that it had reduced the number of counters from 176 to 164 as per its requirements and had introduced a rotating system to deploy personnel, changing staff once every two months to avoid any chances of any sort of misappropriation.
It was these changes in the running of the counters that had prompted some media houses to publish reports claiming that the body had discontinued free services.
Irked by this, it has now clarified that all these decisions are being taken for "the good of pilgrims", and has expressed strong displeasure at the media's "attempts to malign" its image among the devout with their "negative reports".