The volume of daily offerings by devotees to Lord Venkateswara in the form of gold, silver, jewellery and cash is so much that a separate wing within the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams functions with its own staff to enumerate these gifts and prepare accounts in a fool-proof manner.
Endowments Minister G. Venkat Reddy told the Assembly on Wednesday about the counting exercise named “Parakamani” which perhaps has no parallel anywhere in the world to reassure members that every offering to the richest deity was accounted for. He said two visiting pilgrims picked up at random would join the designated TTD staff to participate in ‘Parakamani’. The day’s collections are sorted out and counted under the supervision of a TTD deputy executive officer. The counting staff was subjected to frisking while entering and leaving while closed circuit cameras kept watch around the hall. After the gifts were sorted out, bags of currency and coins were handed over to officers of the designated bank, while gold, silver and jewellery were weighed item-wise and sent to the TTD’s treasury in Tirupati.
