Cancel cashew supply contract: TTD Chairman YV Subba Reddy

Tirupati: TTD Chairman YV Subba Reddy on Saturday directed the marketing department officials to cancel the cashew supply contract of one of the three companies after finding that the company supplied substandard cashew to the TTD. TTD requires cashew for making Srivari prasadams including the most sought after delicious

Tirumala laddus. Following the spate of complaints from devotees on the substandard cashew used in the prasadams including laddus, TTD chairman on Saturday made a surprise inspection of the marketing godown located in Hare Krishna Road in the city.

In his hour-long intense inspection, he verified the quality of cashew supplied by three companies in which he found the supply of cashew by one company was of low-quality. The cashews were broken, dusty and low-colored.

Immediately, the TTD Chairman directed the concerned officials to cancel the tenders. Reddy also inspected the supply of cardamom which was found lacking in its natural aroma and wanted the officials to send the sample to the government laboratory to verify its quality to ascertain whether it adhered to the government specifications. He also checked the ghee and to his surprise found it was also of low-quality.

The Chairman also visited the spot of cashew breaking by Srivari Sevakulu and interacted with them over the quality of products, their services etc.

Subba Reddy said TTD was annually spending over Rs 500 crore for purchase of cashew, ghee, cardamom required for making various prasadams in Tirumala temple and added that recently many devotees

complained to senior officials on the quality of these items prompting him to make an inspection to verify their quality.

Expressing his displeasure on supply of substandard products, he urged the officials to be more vigilant and they should henceforth send the items not only to TTD labs but also at Central Food and Research Labs.

Marketing wing General Manager Subramaniam and Deputy EO Natesh Babu were also present.