Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday appointed a jumbo trust board with 29 members and 52 special invitees for the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which runs the Lord Balaji temple at Tirumala.
This is the biggest ever trust board in the history of the world’s richest Hindu endowment body.
The last trust board had a strength of less than 40 while the newly-formed board has 81 members including ex-officio members and special invitees.
Incidentally, the TTD trust board’s strength exceeds that of the Union Cabinet by three members. The Union Cabinet has a strength of 78 including the prime minister.
India Cements chairman N Srinivasan, My Homegroup chairman J Rameshwar Rao, Hetero group chairman B Pardhasaradhi Reddy were reappointed in the new TTD trust board.
Cousin Telugu state Telangana is now represented by seven members against nine in the previous board.
Sources said the state government had accommodated many VIPs under the special invitee category because of the high demand for the board members.
With several influential devotees strongly lobbying for the berth in the trust board, the state government had decided to appoint more special invitees to allow them to serve the presiding deity of Tirumala.
The state government issued three orders (GOs) constituting the TTD trust board. Earlier, it had appointed YV Subba Reddy, uncle of chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, as the chairman of the trust board on August 8.
Through the first order (GO Ms No 245), the state government constituted a 29-member trust board. It was followed by another order (GO Rt No 568) through which Tirupati MLA Bhumana Karunakar Reddy and Brahmin corporation chairman Sudhakar were appointed as special invitees.
A third-order was issued (GO RT No 569) through which 50 more special invitees were appointed to the trust board with privileges on par with the member trustees.
However, they will not have voting rights.
Minus the three bureaucrats, who are ex-officio members in the TTD trustees list, the statewide allocation of membership is as follows:
Andhra Pradesh 10, Telangana 7, Tamil Nadu 2, Karnataka 2, Maharashtra 2, Gujarat 1, West Bengal 1 and Puducherry 1.
With the state government constituting a jumbo-size trust board, the temple administration will have a Herculean task in terms of effecting suitable changes right from arranging the board meeting hall, providing logistics including vehicles and accommodation to 81 members at the time of the meetings.