Tirumala Temple will be closed on June 21 owing to Surya Grahanam and darshan for pilgrims will commence only after 2.30 pm on the same day, said TTD EO Sri Anil Kumar Singhal.
Before receiving the calls from pilgrim callers during the Dial your EO programme held on Sunday at Annamaiah Bhavan in Tirumala, the EO said, the timings of Solar eclipse is between 10:18am to 1:38pm on June 21. After the temple Suddhi, the pilgrims will be allowed for darshan.
Earlier EO clarified on various rumours about TTD which went viral on social media platform. He said, a baseless report made rounds on Watsapp and Facebook that TTD has removed 1300 outsourcing employees during the lockdown period due to crunch of funds in its coffers which is completely baseless. Similarly false reports made waves about the selling of TTD properties hurting the sentiments of devotees which in reality are completely void of truth. TTD has been selling its unviable lands since 1974 and the decision to sell these properties was taken during last board. That was also misinterpreted by some vested interests to defame the institution|”, EO added.
Following the requests by the pilgrims to provide Laddu Prasadam to devotees as the darshan was stalled owing to Corona lockdown, TTD has sold laddu prasadams at Rs.25 per laddu while the actual expenditure on each laddu is Rs.45 at all the district head quarters and also in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. It was also criticized by a section that TTD is selling sacred laddu prasadams as sweets.
Brushing aside all these allegations, EO said, TTD sold over 22 lakh laddus and tens of thousands of pilgrims purchased the prasadams at their places following the Corona guidelines by strictly observing social distancing. Even now we are receiving requests to sell the laddus”, he added.