Parking fee pinches pockets of Tiruchanur devotees

- Contractor reportedly collecting hefty fee as he had got contract by paying whopping sum of Rs 2.79 crore for 2016-17. His contract
will end by March 31
- Demanding Rs 60 for a small car and issuing a receipt for Rs 50
- Fee is being collected from people visiting Tiruchanur for attending marriages as there are several Kalyanamandapams
- Devotees urge the TTD to take over maintenance of parking spaces

Tirupati: Thousands of devotees visiting Padmavathi Ammavari temple in Tiruchanur should be prepared to dig deep into their pockets to pay for
hiked parking fee. As the temple is located in Tiruchanur panchayat, pilgrims, cab and bus operators were forced to face the music. Even
though, the rates of fee for various categories of vehicles were fixed by the district authorities were already high but contractor is demanding
more than that. For instance, for a car with 3+1 capacity, they are collecting Rs 55-60 and giving receipt for only Rs 50.

It is learnt that the contractor paid a whopping sum of Rs 2.79 crore for 2016-17. This contract will cease to exist on March 31. On an average
every day, around 600 vehicles come to Tiruchanur. On special days and weekends, the number will go up further. These include buses, cars
and private taxis etc. Though they have to collect it in the prescribed area only, it is being collected for every vehicle coming to Tiruchanur
irrespective of the purpose and place of parking. There are many Kalyanamandapams and people coming to attend marriages too were
becoming victims.

Panchayat authorities are simply watching the fun for the reasons best known to them. In fact, the TTD laid the roads for the benefit of pilgrims
and took up the maintenance also. The entire area surrounding the Padma Sarovaram (Pushkarini) is maintained by TTD and parking fee is
being collected there also. A pilgrim from Khammam A Ramamurthy who came in an Innova car along with his family said that the parking fee is
too high and the TTD has to take some action as we come here for darshan of Goddess Padmavathi.

Needless to say that on ordinary days, around 10 to 15,000 devotees visit the temple and the TTD is getting Rs 1 crore revenue from the
temple. It is high time that they ease the burden on devotees. They built public toilets near the temple long ago and started collecting fees from
the people who use it. The TTD objected this and took control of those toilets almost a year ago. In the similar way, they need to take a
decision on parking too.

Summing it up, Tiruchanur Agricultural Market committee president C Sreedhar Reddy said that, they have submitted a memorandum to the DPO
also sometime back on the hefty parking charges and enquiry was also done. It is a major panchayat and they are getting almost Rs 80 lakh
from house taxes in addition to the water taxes. Can anyone find minimum amenities here, he asked. He added that the TTD should take it
seriously and why don’t they pay a reasonable amount to the panchayat every year and ask them not to collect any parking fees. After all, the
TTD is not collecting anything in Tirumala and even the toll fee is also nominal.

However, Panchayat EO Janardhan Reddy said that they did not receive any complaints of high parking fees. “The contractor is collecting fee
as per the bylaws. If any violation comes to our notice, we will take severe action,” he said.

V Pradeep Kumar