INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
TIRUPATI: It's not a sheer coincidence that replicas of Lord Venkateswara temple, synonymous with Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, are being
built at several places across the country such as Jammu, Navi Mumbai, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh
It is part of an ambitious plan of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), the world's richest temple trust, to have a pan-India presence of
Lord Balaji by constructing at least one replica of the Tirupati shrine in every state and Union Territory of India.Founded in 1933, the TTD
trust initially administered the affairs of only a handful of temples, which included the iconic Lord Venkateswara Swamy temple at Tirumala,
Sri Padmavathi Ammavari temple at Tiruchanoor and Sri Govindaraja Swamy temple at Tirupati.But in the nine decades since its inception, the
trust has established 58 temples dedicated to Lord Venkateswara across India
Most of them, though, are located in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu.While TTD first began constructing and
taking over temples in Andhra, the first temple outside the region that it absorbed into its administrative fold was in 1969 - the Balaji
temple in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand
It set its footprint at the southernmost tip of India by establishing a Lord Venkateswara temple in Kanyakumari in 2019
More recently, a temple was opened in Jammu on June 8.The trust is contemplating building three more temples at Gandhinagar in Gujarat,
Raipur in Chattisgarh and in Bihar, where discussions are at a preliminary stage with the Nitish Kumar government.The trust recently laid
the foundation of a replica of Lord Balaji temple in Maharashtra as well, with the state government allocating 10 acres of prime land worth
approximately Rs 600 crore at Navi Mumbai
TTD will spend Rs 70 crore towards the construction.TTD chairman YV Subba Reddy told TOI that constructing Lord Venkateswara Swamy temples
across 28 states and 8 UTs was an attempt towards taking the almighty to the very doorsteps of the devotees
Following Andhra CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy's instructions, TTD will construct smaller temples in remote and backward villages in south
