Lately, it is being seen that more than the divinity, the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams has been making the headlines for its extreme corruption and scams. Here is a shocking truth which was discovered by few groups.
Usually, anyone planning for Tirumala tends to make a train ticket booking in advance so that they can cancel it if a situation arises. During that time, they tend to book only small rooms for obvious reasons. When it comes to the higher middle class families, they tend to look for decent rooms which they don’t get early and a last minute booking has to be made.
The chances of few members not turning up are natural and if you don’t come, the person incharge of the rooms will know. So, when someone else comes and asks for the room, a picture is created that all rooms are booked and status is tight. Slowly, they say that speaking to officer might help. After several pleas from the room seekers, they will ask 1000 rupees whereas the actual room rent would be Rs 350. After few minutes, they come out and say the talks with that incharge didn’t work out and it looks difficult.
Slowly, they indicate that he wants Rs 200. After giving that, he says yes and allots the room. Now, rooms are usually booked based on finger print match so during vacating there will be a print mismatch since it actually is on someone’s name. So, the amount of Rs 300 which is taken as a caution deposit is not returned stating finger print mismatch. In all this, the person who coordinated the entire thing will not be seen in the picture and he won’t answer his mobile.
And in our hurry to get back, we don’t mind letting go of the caution deposit. At the end of the day, for a room of Rs 300, we end up spending Rs 1200 and Rs 900 is shared by all those involved. There is no supervision on this from the authorities.
On the other hand, the devotees are approached politely by the TTD staff asking if they need Kalyan laddus. Given the bhakti we have, we say yes. Then they say that it is very difficult and hard to get so shelling out Rs 500 would work. For someone who can spend, they would not mind getting it since it is the holy prasadam according to them.
However, the truth is that, these laddus are done privately through forfeiting the composition and giving it an almost exact taste of the original Kalyana laddu. So, a laddu which is max 50 rs ends up in the black as Rs 500 and that too a fake. Only the laddus and prasadam given at the counter are original, rest all are fake.
But thanks to our blinded devotion, we feel that anything from hill is prasadam and we compromise. It would have been okay if this backdoor business is getting revenue for the TTD folks but if it is getting into others pockets then it is nothing but fraud. However, the truth remains that you can mess with anyone but not Venkanna. Some of the big leaders and former chairmans of the board have paid their price for that. Though there are still those who are not learning and are taken by greed, they must be aware that the lord is watching. Recently, a noted Siddanthi also predicted that such people will be born as worthless scum and would face severe problems if they try to cheat in the name of the God.
It is about time those who are involved and those who are encouraging such scams stay away from them or else, they will end up facing heavy consequences.
