TIRUMALA TO BE MADE “SPIRITUAL GARDEN CITY”-TTD EO

TIRUMALA, 6 March 2015: The TTD Executive Officer Dr D Samba Siva Rao asserted that the motto of TTD is to give an ambience of “Spiritual Garden City” by taking up seasonal, perennial and annual plantation programme in a wide spread manner across the hill town of Tirumala.

Dr D Samba Siva Rao took part in his maiden monthly “Dial Your EO” programme on Friday at Annamaiah Bhavan in Tirumala. Before taking the calls the from pilgrim callers across the country, the EO briefed on various developmental activities taken up by TTD in the last two and a half months and which are in offing. He said the first and fore most priority of TTD is to provide a hassle free and convenient darshan, accommodation and prasadam to the multitude of pilgrims in a transparent way.

“We have adopted advanced technology to improvise the services to pilgrims in these areas and succeeded in achieving fruitful results. We have now focussed on improving the environs of Tirumala by taking up integrated gardening programme with our Garden and Forests departments for which an action plan is under way. As soon as they enter Tirumala, the pilgrims should feel that they are in “Earthly Vaikuntha”, he maintained.

The EO also elaborated on the recent improvements introduced in Tirumala including hourly announcement of room availability report through pubic address system, Rs.300 online booking status, number of darshan hours to pilgrims etc., introduction of additional laddu tokens within the waiting compartments to enhance transparency and avoid unnecessary long waiting hours and queues for the benefit of pilgrims.

The TTD EO also said, henceforth the pilgrims can purchase articles and goods at MRP rates alone from shopkeepers since TTD has cancelled royalty on all the articles and goods that are sold in Tirumala.

NEED TO EXAMINE AGAMA SHASTRAS TO INSTALL WALKALATORS-TTD EO

About 25 pilgrim callers from across the country called up the TTD Executive Officer Dr D Samba Siva Rao during the monthly Dial your EO programme which took place on Friday at Annamaiah Bhavan in Tirumala. Some excerpts of the programme.

Answering a query by a pilgrim caller Sri Venkatraman from New Delhi to install walkalator to avoid congestion inside temple, the EO said few years back TTD worked out on this proposal but any technical improvement can be done inside the temple only as per Agama Shastras. “However we will re-examine and discuss with the Agama advisors what best can be improved inside to avoid congestion”, he maintained.

Pilgrim callers Smt Soujanya of West Godavari, Sri Nagamalleswar of Prakasam, Sri Raghava Raju of Vijayawada and Sri Manohar Reddy of Chittoor raised complaints over the misappropriation in Kalyanakatta, the EO said, necessary steps will be soon initiated to curb the loopholes in this area.
Sri Subramanyam from Hyderabad, Sri Siva Prasad from Nellore, Sri Nageshwar Reddy from Hyderabad requested the EO to take initiative measure to avoid congestion at Vendivakili for which the EO said, the problem will be addressed soon.

Taking the call from Sri Navin of Nalgonda who sought the EO to improve quality of Rice in Nityannaprasadam complex in Tirumala, the EO said, steps will be initiated.
After completion of the programme, addressing media persons the EO said TTD has negotiated with top most IT firms to improvise the system in Tirumala especially in the areas of darshan, accommodation, prasadam, reception and security. “We are sure of revolutionary changes in the coming days which will enable transparent darshan, stay and prasdam to pilgrims. We will also concentrate on Kalyana Katta bring transparency in the system”, he maintained.

Tirupati JEO Sri P Bhaskar, All department HoDs were also present.

ISSUED BY TTDs PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER, TIRUPATI