Rain fury in Yadadri

Hyderabad: The recently-renovated Yadadri Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple bore the brunt of heavy unseasonal rain on Wednesday.

Entry point of the newly-constructed third ghat road caved in and a large hollow space was formed. Roads towards the temple in the temple town were also inundated and the traffic came to a standstill for a while in the morning.

The rainwater reached till the vicinity of the temple on the hill. Darshan was stopped for over an hour as the temple staff had to drain the water that had flown from the Panchatala Rajagopuram to Dwajasthambam. Temple staff swung into action to clear the rainwater from the temple premises.

Rainwater also entered several places in Ashtabuji mandapam. The staff struggled to clear the stagnated water on the path towards the lift near the main temple. Even prasadam outlet rooms and a queue complex next to the bus bay on the hill were in ankle deep water causing great inconvenience to the devotees. It is reported that rainwater entered the place where laddu prasadam is prepared and some laddus were got spoiled.

The first ghat road turned muddy. Two buses carrying devotees to the hilltop came to a halt on the ghat road. Passengers got off the bus and pushed it out of the mud.

Though the temple authorities said the newly-constructed third ghat road caved in, Yadadri Temple Development Authority (YTDA) vice-chairman and CEO G Kishan Rao said everything at the hillock was perfectly alright.

"Due to heavy rains during these two days, there were erosions at some places and there was no damage. As works are going on and trenches were dug adjacent to the roads, some earth has eroded. That's all," he said. However, many devotees expressed anger over the washing away of the newly-built roads. "It reflects the substandard work done by the contractors," they alleged.

There were tweets by Nalgonda Congress leader Komatireddy Venkat Reddy: "God's money gifted to contractors and government officers (sic)." He said so while blaming the contractors and officers for the quality of the work at Yadagirigutta hillock. Endowment Commissioner Anil Kumar rushed to the temple and reviewed the situation in the temple premises after the unseasonal rains.