India’s richest temple trust—Tirupati is planning to built the temples of replicas of Lord Balaji across the country.
The temples built by Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, are being built at several places across the country such as Jammu, Navi Mumbai, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.
The reports said the move is a 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,” TOI report said.
It added: “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.”
Tirupati is planning to build three more temples at Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Raipur in Chattisgarh and in Bihar, the reports said.
“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,” said TOI report.
The report quoting TTD chairman YV Subba Reddy said “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.”
