Govt mum on budget, TTD in a fix

​Tirupati: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), the richest Hindu religious institution administering a group of temples including the famed Lord Venkateswara temple, Tirumala, is in a fix with the government sitting on its annual budget proposal which was submitted two months ago.

As there was no trust board governing the TTD, the budget for the year 2018-19 which was prepared and sent directly to the government for approval in January this year, well before the commencement of the new financial year, is yet to get government’s nod. 

The AP Charitable and Hindu Religious and Charitable Act 1987 stipulates that “the Executive Officer shall, in each Financial year, not later than 15th of January, frame and place before the Committee, the Budget showing the probable receipts and expenditures during the following year and the Committee shall, within fifteen days of the date on which the budget is placed before it, place it before the Board at a special meeting convened for the purpose for its approval and  the Board shall approve the same with or without modifications, at such meeting and forward sufficient number of copies of such budget to the Government before the end of the said year  The Government may sanction the budget with such modification if any, as they deem fit’’.  

On their part, the Budget Committee prepared the proposals and the TTD executive officer sent it in January itself, sources said revealing that the government sanction is not received till date (March 29).  The government has not reconstituted the TTD trust board after the term of board headed by Chadalavada Krishna Murthy expired in April last year nor appointed a specified authority, though nearly an year has passed without a trust board for TTD. 

Normally, the government appoints a specified authority, a three-member body comprising principal secretary, revenue endowments, commissioner endowments and TTD Executive Officer in case if there is any delay in setting up the trust board, to govern TTD. 

Probably for the first time in TTD’s history, it was left with no trust board and also specified authority, resulting in the executive officer running  the richest religious institutions, said Mangati Gopal Reddy, a social activist who led many cases against the TTD including diversion of its funds for the secular purposes of the government.   In the same breath, Gopal Reddy said that a piquant situation arose as in the TTD Act there was no clarity whether TTD trust board approval is must before sending it to government. 

It simply said that the board shall approve the budget proposal in a special meeting convened, with or without modifications, for forwarding it to government, resulting in the ambiguity.  However, sources in TTD said that there will be no problem for TTD to discharge its financial obligation, the budget provisions in the TTD Act allow TTD to spend the one sixth of the budget amount to meet the expenditures for up to two months i.e. April and May and appropriate it later after the approval of the budget by government.
  
It is pertinent to note that before government setting up TTD to administer the temples in Tirumala and other places, The Mahanth of Swamy Hathiramji Mutt was looking after them as a custodian (Vicharanakartha) as per the Sanad, between the British government and the Mahant till the endowments took over it in 1933. 

With the pilgrims visiting Tirumala shrine as well as income steadily but rapidly increasing, the government enacted a law creating TTD as a separate body for the administration of the temples in Tirupati, Tirumala and other places.