Donations poured in for TTD despite note ban

Tirupati: Donations to TTD trusts soared even at the time of note ban if the figures related to nine trusts floated by TTD to take up various social service programmes are of any indication. 

TTD floated nine trusts namely Sri Venkateswara Annaprasadam Trust (SVAT), Sri Venkateswara Pranadana Trust (SVPT), Sri Venkateswara Go Samrakshana Trust (SVGT), Sri Venkateswara Sarva Sreyas Trust (SVSST), Sri Venkateswara Vidyadana Trust (SVVT), Sri Venkateswara Veda Parirakshana Trust (SVVPT), Sri Balaji Institute of Surgery Research and Rehabilitation for the Disabled Trust (BIRRDT), Sri Srinivasa Sankara Netralaya Trust  (SSSNT) and Sri Venkateswara Heritage Preservation Trust (SVHPT) for taking up various programmes, including health, education, protection of heritage, preservation, promotion and propagation of Vedas and free food to the poor and visiting pilgrims.

Among the nine trusts, Annaprasadam Trust tops with Rs 934 crore donations received from 50,477 donor devotees, as on March 31 this year, according to TTD sources. The details of the donations received in the last three years indicated that the donations to the nine trust have been increasing rapidly. In 2015-16, Rs 105.50 crore was received as donation to Annaprasadam Trust while it increased to Rs 119.37 crore in 2016-17 and to Rs 127.22 crore in 2017-18.

With TTD on an average receiving more than Rs 100 crore as donation to Annaprasadam Trust, the total donation to the trust is expected to cross Rs 1,000 crore mark this fiscal i.e. 2018-19.

According to TTD officials, the soaring deposits to Annadanam Trust enabled TTD to expand free food programme from Tirumala to Tirupati where free food is being provided to pilgrims in TTD choultries and also at the government hospitals, including SVIMS, BIRRD and SVRR government general hospital here for the benefit of the patient attendants.

Donations to Pranadana Trust, which were Rs 14.41 crore in 2015-16 increased to Rs 18.52 in 2017-18 while Go Samrakshana Trust saw its donations double to Rs 29.50 crore in 2017-18 as against Rs 14.82 in 2015-16. 

The total donations received by Pranadana Trust and Go Samrakshana are Rs 237 crore and Rs 123 crore respectively, as March this year.
BIRRD Trust’s yearly donations, which were Rs 6.56 crore, went up to Rs 11.74 crore and Veda Parirakshana Trust donations went up from Rs 3.76 crore to Rs 8.98 crore in the last three years.

In a nutshell, the total deposit amount in the nine trusts was Rs 1,568 crore as on March this year and the total number of donor is about 75,000. TTD officials say that more and more people, including NRIs impressed by TTD social service programmes were regularly contributing to TTD trusts, particularly to Annadanam Trust providing free food to more than one lakh people daily in Tirumala to the visiting pilgrims and introducing breakfast also in the Annadanam complex daily.