Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Executive Officer A.V. Dharma Reddy has urged the National Disaster Management Authority (NMDA) to draw an action plan to help it avert casualties during natural calamities in Tirumala.
In a virtual meeting at the Annamaiah Bhavan on Thursday, Mr. Reddy urged NDMA Joint Secretary Kumal Sathyarthi to provide a draft manual of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to protect the devotees in the events of landslides, road accidents and natural calamities.
In a brief presentation, the TTD EO said that the average pilgrim footfalls visiting the temple town had touched 80,000 a day and the figures were even more on festive occasions.
Tirumala town, which has 7,500 cottages and guesthouses in addition to a mammoth shopping complex, needs an action plan to evacuate the people in case of exigency.
Forest fires
The TTD management is also in need of a rescue and rehabilitation plan to tackle forest fires, unforeseen misadventures at laddu counters and Annaprasadam complex that mill with pilgrim crowds round-the-clock he said.
Mr. Sathyarthi assured that a team of the NDMA experts would be sent to Tirumala soon for a first-hand study. The team will conduct a workshop and impart training to the TTD staff in the line of caution to be adopted while tackling the disasters, he said.
TTD JEOs Sada Bhargavi, Veerabrahmam, CVSO Narasimha Kishore, Chief Engineer Nageswar rao, A.P. NDMA officials Nagaraj, Sekhar Chaturvedi, TUDA secretary Lakshmi and meteorological officer Balachandra were present in the meeting.
