Coronavirus | TTD writes to Centre seeking vaccination for frontline staff

The Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) has written to the Union authorities seeking COVID-19 vaccination to its frontline staff who’re managing hundreds of devotees every day at Tirumala, its Chairman Y.V. Subba Reddy stated in Chennai on Saturday.

Mr. Reddy informed The Puucho that 2,500 staff dealing with queues, counters, safety, darshan and many others had been recognized as frontline warriors since a median of 55,000 devotees had been visiting the hill temple each day.

“We have written to the government of India to include our staff in the list of frontline corona warriors who are managing the pandemic. We are also pursuing the matter with the State government to facilitate the vaccinations at the earliest,” Mr. Reddy stated.

About 25-30 staff had been contaminated with COVID-19 of whom two staff died due to comorbidities. The variety of devotees visiting the temple, which was restricted to 5,000 in June 2020, was elevated in a phased method. “Now we have an average of 55,000 devotees per day. Before the pandemic, it used to be around 85,000 on weekdays and more than a lakh on weekends.”

Mr. Reddy stated the hundi assortment had elevated from ₹30 lakh (per day) when the temple was opened after the lockdown to a median of ₹2.75 crore within the final two months. The income deficit this fiscal was anticipated to be ₹650 crore. Though there was a drastic fall within the hundi collections, the principle supply of earnings, the TTD managed to maintain routine actions in its training and healthcare companies.

Interest from mounted deposits hit

The TTD Chairman stated the curiosity accrued from mounted deposits earlier than the pandemic, about ₹14,000 crore, was enough to handle the institution value together with salaries, instructional establishments, hospitals and many others. “At the rate of about 8% we used to get ₹120 crore as interest alone. The rate of interest was reduced to 3.5% …in January this year it was increased to 4%,” he stated.

Asked whether or not the TTD had any plans to diversify its investments sample, Mr. Reddy stated venturing into new avenues of investments would include a component of threat. “This is the hard-earned money of the devotees and we cannot afford to take any risk,” he stated.

Mr. Reddy stated the viewership of the Sri Venkateswara Bhakti Channel (SVBC) had touched 8 crore. The TTD had launched advertisement-free programmes following suggestions from the viewers. Some devotees, most of them NRIs, had been providing donations for the devotional channel. The cyber safety wing had registered instances towards web sites fleecing cash by fraudulent darshan packages.