Bogus devotees donate 100 kg gold to Tirupati Balaji Temple

Hyderabad, April 3: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), the richest temple body in the world with annual earnings to the tune of Rs 700 crore found itself in a piquant situation after having discovered that some of those who donated gold for the fantasy gold plating 'Ananda Nilayam-Anantha Swarnamayam' project turned out to be bogus, as reported by the

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Earlier, after the Supreme Court had stayed the project, TTD started sending out letters to donors asking whether they intended to take back the gold or wanted to use it for other schemes of TTD. Most interestingly, TTD found that some of the addresses of the donors were non-existent.

A senior official from TTD said that "We were perplexed as in some cases, the addresses were fictitious though gold was donated in their names."

Meanwhile, TTD is in a fix on what to do with the gold of the bogus donors as over 100 kg of it has been donated to TTD kitty for the gold plating project so far. Official of TTD has confirmed that gold is in the safe custody of treasury.

The Supreme Court had ordered Tirupati that no further work could be taken up till further order. The direction of the Supreme Court comes after a petition was filed by the Janata Party leader, Subramanian Swamy, alleging that former TTD chairman DK Adikesavulu Naidu (DK) was the brain behind the controversial project, who appealed to the SC to direct the temple authorities to continue the project.

Moreover, the Andhra Pradesh High Court stayed the gold plating works as it could pose a serious threat to the centuries-old inscriptions and weaken the Tirumala temple structure. Even the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) told the high court that the proposed gold plating of the walls of the temple could damage the inscriptions which should be preserved for posterity.

OneIndia News