Act against Sarada Peetham’s illegal construction, TTD told

Tirupati: As expected, the state government took a key decision by rejecting to ratify the illegal constructions taken up by Visakha Sri Sarada Peetham in Tirumala. Secretary to government (endowments) S Satyanarayana issued a memo to this effect on Thursday. The memo was issued following the controversy over the alleged violations in the construction of the Sarada Peetham’s buildings, at the land leased from the TTD.

TTD allotted 5,000 square feet land to Sri Sarada Peetham in February 2005 for the construction of its mutt in Tirumala. The peetham has since been utilising the space, which includes an additional 4,817 square feet adjacent to the original lease area. In 2020, this extra land was regularised and the Peetham was permitted to build additional rooms. This has kicked up a row as the peetham has made constructions with many deviations in the approved plans.

A PIL was also filed in the AP High Court on these illegal constructions by Tirukshetralala Parirakshana Samithi head Thumma Omkar. In this backdrop, the state government’s memo mentioned that the proposal for ratification of the TTD Board Resolution No .443 dated December 26, 2023 was rejected and directed the TTD to take further necessary action strictly in accordance with rules and regulations in force.

It has also instructed the TTD EO to circulate such proposals to the government for prior approval and consideration instead of seeking ratification to avoid unnecessary legal complications in future. It may be recalled here that the existing building constructed in the year 2007 is having a built up area of 1906.50 square meters while the approved plan was for 740.89 square meters only which has a deviation of 1165.61 sqm.

The extension building was approved for 937.39 sqm built up area while it was constructed for 1,622.84 sqm leading to a deviation of 685.45 sqm. The total deviation is calculated as 1,851.06 sqm (19,924.81 sq ft). The deviations were approved by the TTD trust board in 2023 and sent to the government for ratification.