TTD takes up 'Op Clean-up' to throw out touts

Tirumala: TTD officials have finally initiated action against the middlemen involved in black marketing of Srivari darshan tickets in Tirumala.

In recent times, there has been a spurt in the middlemen operating at Tirumala selling darshan tickets in black. Following complaints from devotees, the authorities have now started 'Operation Clean-up'.

According to sources, every day 50 to 100 middlemen corner VIP break darshan, Archananatara darshan, Thomala Seva tickets, Suprabatham and other important seva tickets from Tirumala JEOs office by using AP and Telangana state MLAs recommendation letters.

They sell these tickets to devotees at an exorbitant price of Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 depending on the demand for Arjitham tickets. These middlemen claim that they offer huge bribe to a few low-level employees of the TTD to get tickets from the discretionary quota.

This is not a new practice and has been in vogue for over two decades and every official knows who the middlemen are.

But no serious action was ever initiated. Once a while some action is taken but that is more of an eyewash.

After the getting instructions from Tirumala special officer AV Dharma Reddy on Wednesday evening, TTD vigilance sleuths swung into action on Thursday and collected details of about 30 such operators from various devotees who purchased VIP break darshan tickets from them.

The officials say that incidents of middlemen getting tickets on the basis of forged signatures of MLAs of Telangana and AP on their letterheads had also come to light and couple of them were nabbed by the Tirumala police.

Keeping the past experience in mind, the question now is, will the TTD officials take stringent action against such persons or, will it just be another eyewash exercise.

Can they establish the involvement of officials at lower levels and also initiate action against them? Is cleansing of the system possible at all levels? These doubts were expressed by some devotees.

S K Siva was one such devotee who felt that the officials will create some 'hungama' for a couple of days and then it will be the same story.