Tirumala laddus fly off shelves in no time

Stocks at district headquarters evaporate in no time

The famed laddus of Lord Venkateswara, which TTD started selling at all the district headquarters in the State on Monday, evaporated within a couple of hours of opening of the sales counters.

The feverish demand for laddu from the devout was so intense that TTD Kalyana Mandapams in majority of the district headquarters ran out of stocks well before noon.

The TTD had embarked on the ambitious mission of providing laddus to the devout with an intention of respecting their religious sentiments as it is 67 days since the closure of hill temple for public in the wake of COVID-19. This apart, it was also awash with requests for providing them at least with the laddu prasadam, as uncertainty loomed large on the re-opening of the hill temple.

It is against this back drop that the TTD shipped about 2.4 lakh laddus to various district headquarters on Saturday.

Challenging task

TTD Additional Executive Officer A.V. Dharma Rreddy, who was buoyed at the response from the public, told The Hindu that it was after a gruelling exercise that the management had embarked on the challenging task. TTD Chairman Y.V. Subba reddy decided to provide laddus at a much subsidised price of ₹25 as against its actual cost of ₹50 as he didn’t wish to overburden the people who were already laden with low income owing to pandemic though it impacted TTD coffers.

Furthermore, he wanted the TTD to bear transportation charges and other expenses involved in the mammoth exercise. Besides finalising the route map, all the district revenue and police authorities concerned were also spoken to and services of SVS volunteers roped in.

The TTD could not carry out any sales in Guntur as the area where the Kalyana mandapam is located had been marked as red zone. Hence the stocks were diverted to Rajahmundry.

Second batch sent

Mr. Dharma Reddy said the TTD was determined to ensure the supply chain of laddus on a day-to-day basis till the opening of temple and, in fact, had also despatched its second consignment of over two lakh laddus on Monday.

“Requests from other States like Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are also pouring in for the supply of laddus on similar lines. We have asked them to secure required permissions from their respective State governments or wait till June 1 when the current phase of lockdown ends,” he added.