Tirupati : TTD approves Rs 2,937 crore budget

Tirupati : TTD trust board meet presided over by chairman Y V Subba Reddy here on Saturday approved Rs 2,937.82 crore budget for 2021-2022 which is Rs 372.07 crore les than the previous 2020-2021 actual budget which was pegged at Rs 3,309.89 crore.

The major receipts in the budget estimates include kanuka (hundi offering) Rs 1,110 crore, interest on deposits Rs 533.10 crore, sale of prasadams Rs 375 crore, Kalyanakatta (sale of human hair) Rs 131 crore and special entrance and beginning break Rs 210 crore for the year 2021-2022.

A glance at the budget for 2021-22 indicates the temple administration's financial position nearing to its normal position with almost all major receipts estimated to increase. including the hundi offerings, sale of prasadams, accommodation, arjitha sevas, special entrance ticket sale compared to the pandemic year 2020-21.

Notably, the special entrance Rs 300 tickets and break tickets estimated to fetch Rs 210 crore as against the previous year's Rs 147 crore due to TTD focusing on sale of online special entry tickets which is much more than the offline free Sarva Darshan tokens issued daily now for darshan of Lord Venkateswara.

However. the interest (bank) receipts decreased to Rs 533 crore in the present budget as against Rs 738 crore in the previous 2020-21. The revised estimates for 2020-21 clearly indicated that there is steep fall in various receipts obviously due to the pandemic which hit hard the nation did not spare the TTD administering the world famous Sri Venkateswar temple at Tirumala.

This includes the hundi offerings (Kanukas) which came down to Rs 602 crore as against the estimate of Rs 1,351 crore, sale of prasadams which was Rs 170 crore as against the estimate of Rs 400 crore, sale of darshan tickets Rs 147 crore as against estimated Rs 302 crore.

However, in 2020-21, the sale of human hair fetched Rs 125 crore more than the estimated Rs 106 crore and the interest receipts have also increased to Rs 738.18 crore while the estimate was RS 706 crore.

Except these two i.e. interests and Kalyanaktta income, all other receipts fell down due to the shrine remaining closed for 80 days due to the nationwide lockdown enforced following the flare up of Covid pandemic in the country.

The utilisation of funds (expenditure) in the budget proposed include human resource payments Rs 1,308 crore, engineering capital works Rs 385 crore, Garuda Varadhi works taken up by Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) Rs 50 crore, engineering maintenance works Rs 180 crore, Hindu Dharma Prachara Parishad and other projects for propagation of Sanathana Dharma Rs 109.55 crore and corpus and other investments Rs 150 crore.

The allocation to Dharma Pracharam increased from Rs 87.55 crore to Rs 109.55 crore while the contribution to state government too increased from Rs 2.25 crore to Rs 50 crore. Grants to other institutions including TTD and universities increased to Rs 170 crore and Health, sanitation and facility management also to Rs 170 crore in the budget 2021-22.