TIRUPATI:
Sri Venkateswara Alayala Nirmanam Trust (SRIVANI Trust), a Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) initiative, has fetched Rs 880 crore from devotees who donated at least Rs 10,000 in the past five years, said an official on Sunday.
For every donation of Rs 10,000, TTD offers a ‘VIP Break Darshan’, which enables the donors to visit the deity early in the morning, unlike through Sarvadarshanam queue that has a longer waiting time.
”Linking of one-time VIP Break Darshan to the donor who donates Rs 10,000 (one person) to the Trust has fetched nearly Rs 880 crores to the Trust besides curbing middlemen menace,” said the temple body’s executive officer (EO) A V Dharma Reddy in a press release.
Started in 2018, the SRIVANI Trust aims to construct and maintain Sri Venkateswara Swamy temples across India and provide amenities to perform rituals, functions and festivals. It also fulfils the objective of renovating, protecting, preserving and maintaining gopurams (monumental temple towers) among other such works.
Since 2019, Reddy said nine lakh devotees availed darshan through the SRIVANI Trust.
As part of ‘dial your EO’ programme, Reddy told a devotee from Karnataka that TTD cannot extend accommodation beyond 24 hours to devotees as there were only 7,000 rooms in Tirumala while one lakh pilgrims descend on the hill town on a daily basis.
Meanwhile, Sudha Murthy, former TTD Trust Board member and former Infosys Foundation chairperson, has donated a golden abhisheka shankam (ritual utensil) to the temple, accompanied by her husband N R Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys.PTI
