Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Chairman Y.V. Subba Reddy on Friday laid the foundation for the construction of a new Parakamani building opposite the Anna Prasadam complex along with a donor Murali Krishna from Bengaluru who bore the entire cost of ₹8.90 crore for the project.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Reddy said that the proposed building will be an integrated complex of two blocks with an in-built provision for offices, strong rooms, waiting hall and donor cell.
While the first block will house the offices of the temple and security officials, the second block is devoted for Parakamani and its auxiliary activities like a sorting hall for segregating the offerings received from the temple hundi, ten strong rooms to benefit bankers to park collected proceeds ahead of shipping them to their respective banks, and a donor cell.
The management has also obtained written approvals from both the pontiffs of the hill temple for shifting of Parakamani (process of counting of offerings received from the temple hundi) outside the main temple complex.
Around 250 personnel attend Parakamani every day which at present is conducted in a congested narrow hall behind the sanctum sanctorum. Maintaining of required physical distancing among its 250 employees in the hall in accordance with COVID-19 protocols is a challenging task, and is one of the reasons for the proposal to shift the process outside the main complex.
To ensure fast-track sorting of coin currencies on a day-to-day basis, plans are afoot to secure two German-made counting machines, he said.
TTD Additional Executive Officer A.V. Dharma Reddy, Chief Engineer Ramesh Reddy, SE Nageswara Rao and VGO Manohar attended the ground-breaking ceremony.
