The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) is contemplating to provide one free laddu to every devotee having darshan at Tirumala. In what can be called as a new year gift to the ardent devotees of Lord Venkateswara, sources revealed that TTD would be providing 80,000 to 1 lakh laddus to the devotees from now on according to the newly implemented scheme.
According to the decision taken by the board members, TTD is likely to roll out the scheme on ‘Vaikunta Ekadashi’ or on Sankranti which falls on January 15. Previously, devotees who reach to Tirumala by foot are provided with one free laddu and additional laddus are provided only if they possess a recommendation letter endorsed by certain TTD officials. While this has been termed as one of the reasons for black marketing of the prasadam, this step was taken to tackle the black marketing to some extent in the wake of a scam involving misappropriation of 26,000 laddus.
