Organic cleaning of temple soon: EO Anil Kumar Singhal

Tirumala: To enhance the longevity of the Tirumala temple, organic process of cleaning using a thick herbal paste and water jet will be utilised soon, said TTD EO Anil Kumar Singhal.

Speaking to the media after attending ‘Dial your EO’ programme at Annamayya Bhavan here on Friday, the EO said, it has been several years since Tirumala temple is cleansed thoroughly and the TTD will take up herbal process to clean the temple.

“We have already experimented the same in Sri Govindaraja Swamy temple in Tirupati. Initially, we tried the same near Mahadwaram, Dhwajastambham and seeing the results we called for expression of interest to take up the entire work,” he maintained. Adding further, the EO said, the Mahasamprokshanam of Tirumala temple will be taken up after negotiating with Vaikhanasa Agama pundits.

The EO stated Lord Venkateswara temples are coming up at Kanyakumari at a cost of Rs 22.60 crore and Kurukshetra at 34.6 crore. “Both temples are getting ready for inauguration and the presiding deities will be installed likely in the months of April and May.

The construction of Goddess Sri Padmavathi temple at Chennai at Rs 7 crore and Lord Venkateswara temple in Bhubaneswar at a cost of Rs 6.7 crore will commence soon,” he mentioned.

Briefing on other works, the EO said, the beautification of Alipiri footpath, Avilala tank, Alipiri-Cherlopalle road are also underway and nearing completion. The retractable roof which was set up in Tirumala temple to shield the pilgrims during inclement weather, is enabling devotees to have Dhwajastambha darshan after many decades, said Anil Kumar Singhal.

The EO said, earlier due to the covering, the devotees are void of taking a look at tip of the temple pillar as the roof shielded the pillar and the sky as well. “But now as we made the retractable roof, it remains open enabling the devotees to cherish the sight of the temple pillar with a back-drop sky providing them a unique experience,” he stated.

Reacting to the pilgrim caller Rajendra from Kakinada, the EO said, they will discuss the possibilities of erecting retractable roof for galleries in Mada streets. Answering the pilgrim callers Saiprasad from Peddapuram, Venkat Rao from Visakhapatnam, Mallaiah from Miryalaguda, the EO said, TTD has commenced on-line dip of arjitha seva tickets for transparency.

When a pilgrim Nagamani from Nagaram sought EO to introduce machine based physical frisking instead of manual as it is causing inconvenience especially aged women devotees, answering her EO said, very soon new hi-fi system will replace manual frisking in Tirumala. Tirumala JEO KS Sreenivasa Raju, CVSO A Ravikrishna, SO Muktheswara Rao, and CE Chandrasekhar Reddy were also present.