With YSRCP coming into government, Jagan appointed his well-wishers in the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) board. After Jagan’s team taking charge, they took some bold decisions such as hiking the rents of rooms which did not go well with the devotees and the other day, they decided to ban plastic on the seven hills. Even the plastic bags for ‘Laddu Prasadam’ is stopped.
Instead of the plastic bags, the ‘Laddu Prasadam’ is being supplied in paper boxes. However, yesterday there were not adequate paper boxes and so there occurred a trouble in distributing the Prasadam. Now the TTD took yet another decision that could bring hundreds of crore of loss.
With devotees offering liquid cash in the Hundi, every year TTD credits fixed deposits in banks. Till date such deposits were made in private banks as they offer higher interest rates compared to the national banks.
In a surprise, TTD has decided to do the fixed deposits in national banks even though they offer less interest. Currently national banks are offering 6.57 percent interest on fixed deposits whereas private banks are offering 8.6 percent. This decision could cost TTD Rs 100 crore every year but TTD has a specific reason behind this.
TTD opines that there are security issues with private banks. Earlier when Rs 1400 crore was deposited in a private bank, devotees raised objections and even petitions were filed in the High Court. In order to not bring up anymore controversies on TTD’s fixed deposits, the governing body has decided to ignore local and private banks and prefer only national banks.
This decision of TTD has garnered a mixed response. Though devotees are okay with it, few within TTD claim that it will be their loss.
