Executive Officer of the Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), I.Y.R. Krishna Rao has on Saturday asserted that the recent changes brought about in certain arjitha sevas (paid sevas) and so also behind the introduction of the Rs.300/- Special Darshan ticket was only to ensure a hassle-free darshan for the devotees and not to mop up any additional revenue for the TTD. By the grace of the Lord, the TTD has enough resources and reserves and as such there is no need for any human effort to increase His riches, Mr. Rao said.
The E.Os clarification comes in the wake of confusion and the public outcry against the changes introduced in the sevas and the tariffs by the TTD Trust Board at its recent meeting at Tirumala.
He sought to clarify that the Sudarsanam token system (both free and paid) would remain untouched and said that only the Cellar Entry and the Archana Anantaram Darshan (AAD) tickets were being dispensed with as the crowd that gathered for the two was becoming too unwieldy.
He claimed that on the other hand the Rs.300/- special entry ticket introduced by the board at its recent meeting was more pilgrim-friendly. It is available round-the-clock across the Arjitha Seva counter in contrast to the AAD which are sold only in the morning for a few hours and the Cellar Entry tickets which are available only to the influential.
The objective behind the whole exercise is to make the tickets easily available even to the ordinary pilgrims so that the middlemen called ‘dalalis’ in the TTD parlance get automatically eliminated. This will also avoid scouting for the tickets around the power centres in the TTD.
Arjitha Sevas: As to changes being made in the two Arjitha Sevas viz;. Sahasra Kalasabhishekam and Ashtadala Pada Padmaradhana, Mr. Krishna Rao was at pains to remove the misgivings over them that the TTD was ‘interfering’ with the age-old worship system. He sought to clarify that the two sevas were only ‘Arjitha Sevas’ and not the ‘mandatory nithya sevas’ such as the Suprabhatham, Friday Abhishekam, Thomala, Archana, Ekantha Seva etc which cannot be either dispensed or tampered with by anyone since they were being performed over the decades as ordained in the Agama Sasthra which governed temple rituals.
But the Arjitham (paid) Sevas like Sahasram, Ashtadala Padam, Tiruppavada ,SD Seva etc were introduced by the successive boards over the years as new forms of worship more for the benefit of the devotees and by the way earn some revenue for the TTD coffers as well.
As to the reforms being proposed in some more other Arjitha Sevas, Mr. Rao clarified that they would be done only if the committee constituted for the purpose discussed the issue threadbare with the Agama pundits and secured their approval.
