Hyderabad, November 28
India’s richest temple at Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh will soon acquire a glittering look, on the lines of Golden Temple of Amritsar, with the launch of an ambitious gold plating project.

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), an autonomous body managing the affairs of the hill shrine, has initiated the Rs 1,000 crore project, entirely with the help of donations from devotees from across the world.

The plan involves covering the interiors and the walls of the main temple with gold plates and will require 100 kg of gold.

“This will be a unique project in the country. We hope to complete it within one year,” the TTD Chairman DK Adikesavulu Naidu said after launching the gold-plating works.

The temple board decided to pool in the entire cost involved for completion of the works by way of inviting donations from philanthropists, without burdening the TTD coffers.

A flood of offerings has been pouring in ever since the plan was publicised and the temple authorities had so far received 80 kg of gold as donation for the project, christened as “Ananda Nilayam Anantha Swarnamayam”.

From business tycoons and corporate houses to ordinary people, the devotees of Lord Venkateswara have been offering gold chains, rings and gold biscuits, the officials said.

“The response from devotees has been overwhelming,” said the temple Executive Officer IV Krishna Rao.

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The TTD Board had consulted Agama pundits, peethadhipathis and other spiritual leaders and obtained their nod before embarking on the ambitious project.

Enough precautions had been taken for preservation of inscriptions on the temple walls. The inscriptions found on the outer and inner walls of “Ananda Nilayam”, the sanctum sanctorum, stretching around 10,000 square feet, have been digitised, the EO said.

A high-security workshop has been set up at Tirumala where expert craftsmen are engaged in chiselling out the gold plates to be fitted on to the interior walls of the temple. “We will take the financial support of donors from all over the country and abroad to implement this mega plan,” the TTD Chairman said.

Surprisingly, the multi-crore project has evoked protest from a Sangh Parivar outfit on the ground that it would “interfere with the religious structure.”

The VHP urged the temple trust board to scrap the move keeping in view the religious sentiments of the Hindus.

“There is a craze for covering temple walls and other structures with gold. There is no religious sanction for these acts as it is the wilfully desire of some politicians and individuals to do so,” the VHP International Working President S Vedantam said.

However, the temple authorities refuted the charge and said utmost care was being taken to preserve the rare lithographic treasure available on the walls of the “Prakaram” of the 12th century Vaishnavite shrine,

In 1958, the TTD authorities got part of the outer wall of the sanctum sanctorum, stretching about 200 sq metres, gold plated with 12 kg gold donated by devotees.

Tirumala, nestled among the picturesque string of seven hills, is the richest temple in India with its annual revenues crossing Rs 1,300 crore.