The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which manages the operations of the Lord Venkateswara Temple at Tirumala, received a staggering ₹96.98 crore in donations to its various trusts and schemes in a single day on Tuesday as devotees rushed to beat the deadline for a sweeping overhaul of donor privileges.
The unprecedented inflow came on the eve of the implementation of TTD’s revised donor privilege policy, which took effect on Wednesday (July 15). With the temple administration announcing that the concessions available under the existing donation schemes would cease after Tuesday midnight, devotees anxious to secure the earlier benefits queued up to make substantial contributions.
As many as 2,460 devotees made donations during the day, of whim 2,354 contributed online, while 106 opted for the offline mode.
The donation profile reflected the extraordinary response. A total of 1,212 devotees contributed amounts from ₹1 lakh, while 1,246 donors made contributions between ₹10 lakh and ₹25 lakh. Two devotees donated more than ₹1 crore each.
The remarkable surge in contributions has once again underscored Tirumala’s unparalleled appeal among devotees. Besides its vast movable and immovable assets, including extensive landed properties collectively valued at several lakh crore rupees, the temple has once again demonstrated that it remains the country’s foremost destination for voluntary cash donations.
TTD said the revised donor policy was formulated to ease the burden on ordinary pilgrims by reducing prolonged waiting hours and addressing other pilgrim-related inconveniences. As part of the overhaul, several privileges extended to donors under the earlier schemes have been scaled down under the new policy, which came into force on Wednesday.
The latest rush also highlighted the sheer scale of TTD’s donor base. According to official statistics available as of June 26, the temple body had 1,97,888 donors who had contributed to its various trusts and schemes. Of them, 1.5 lakh devotees had donated ₹1 lakh while 22,000 devotees had contributed more than ₹10 lakh.
