The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), during its Trust Board meeting held at Tirumala on December 26 (Tuesday), decided to distribute house sites to its 5,018 employees in two phases—in December and January. For this, the TTD will procure another 350 acres in Tirupati district.
The Trust Board took several major decisions including organising a ‘Dharmika Sadas’ in February 2024, for which pontiffs and monks of various mutts and religious organisations across India would be invited.
Similarly, the Trust Board decided to hike the salaries of the ‘Potu’ workers (temple kitchen staff) by ₹10,000 each and that of the Vahana bearers by identifying them as ‘skilled workers’. A mandatory minimum wage of ₹20,000 would be paid to the barbers working at the Kalyanakatta (tonsuring centres) at Tirumala.
Addressing the media, TTD Trust Board Chairman B. Karunakar Reddy and Executive Officer A.V. Dharma Reddy said that the annual financial assistance extended to the Tirumala-Tirupati Pedda Jeeyar and Chinna Jeeyar mutts would be hiked by ₹60 lakh and ₹40 lakh respectively to enable them serve the devotees visiting the pilgrim centres.
Two new rest houses
The Trust Board approved tenders to build two new rest houses ‘Achyutam’ and ‘Sripatham’ at Tirumala at an outlay of ₹209.65 crore each. The tenders submitted to establish permanent queue lines near the Gogarbham dam at a cost of ₹4.47 crore were approved.
Venkateswara temple in Jharkhand
As a part of the ‘Dharma Prachara’ initiative, the Trust Board resolved to build a temple for Lord Venkateswara in 100 acres in Jharkhand, allocate ₹2 crore for developmental works in Chandragiri Moolasthana Yellamma temple and ₹14.55 crore towards providing amenities at Alipiri.
Mr. Karunakar Reddy released ‘Govinda Namakoti’, ‘Bhagavad Gita’ books and local temple calendars for the new year.
The Namakoti books containing 200 pages are distributed to devotees to write Govinda Nama 39,600 times in each book. Twenty-six books are required to write 10,01,116 Govinda Namas and 253 books required to write the name one crore times.
This is in tune with the new scheme introduced by the TTD to encourage the youth below the age of 25 years to write Govinda Namas 10 lakh times to avail of the break darshan facility at the Tirumala temple.
