The Tirumala Tirupati Devastanams (TTD) abandoned the Controversial project ‘ Ananda Nilayam- Ananta Swarnamayam’. The project aimed at covering entire sanctum sactorum of temple with gold. The massive project was launched in March 2009, when Adikesavulu Naidu was the chairman of TTD.
TTD executive officer D Sambasivarao said in the dial-your-EO program that the project was shelved following Supreme Court directive.
For the project, the TTD has so far received 145 kg gold in addition to Rs 11 crore cahs from devotees. He said the TTD had written letter to the donors about the decision to abandon the project of gold plating temple.
As many as 127 devotees donated about 145 kg of gold for the project including Mukesh Ambani (1 kg), Yeddyurappa (1 kg) and Lata Mangeshkar (1 kg). Several devotees donated as much as Rs 11 crore for the project, including Rs 6 crore by liquor baron Vijay Mallya and Rs 1 crore by Mukesh Ambani.
The project landed in controversy with many objecting the gold plating of an archeaologically significant structure and they invoked the archeaological survey of India as well. They feared that the wall had ancinet inscriptions in Telugu, Kannada and Tamil, and would get erased or damaged if gold plating was done.
The case finally reached the Supreme Court which directed the TTD to scrap the project in which six doors out of 14 had already been gold plated.
