TTD laddu scam

Official source said irregularities in the laddus sale surfaced two weeks ago when the supervising staff detected excess sale of laddus in counters

• Two temple employees are being interrogated
• Fake laddu coupons stump TTD vigilance

Tirupati: The TTD Vigilance officials on Saturday unearthed a major “laddu prasadam” scam in Tirumala.The scam saw the light of the day with the TTD Vigilance sleuths interrogating two temple employees on the allegation that they had fake “laddu” coupons printed. They had thus caused huge revenue loss.

The Vigilance officials were alerted when they had found some fake coupons recently. Investigations led the officials to unravel that the coupons had been printed in the TTD printing press only. Official source said irregularities in the laddus sale surfaced two weeks ago when the supervising staff detected excess sale of laddus in counters.

The number of tokens issued at queue complex to the general pilgrims and also the Divya Darshanam pilgrims, who trekked up the hill on foot on the pedestrian paths and those received at the counters did not tally. Token issued to those, who trekked up the hill, were meant for sale of laddus at subsidised price.

Scrutiny of coupons revealed that some of them were fake ones. It all led to the Vigilance officials launching investigation and busting of the scam. Reliable sources said verification was still going. It was a cumbersome procedure as the Vigilance personnel were engaged in verifying voluminous records.

Unless the number of fake coupons received at the counter was known, total number of laddus distributed through fake coupons could not be arrived. The scam revealed deep-seated gangsters, who included outsiders and insiders, engaging in scams surfacing time and again.

Sources said the fake coupons, which were same in colour and size, besides containing TTD hologram baffled the Vigilance personnel. Now the needle of suspicion pointed to the staff in the TTD printing press here. The TTD Vigilance personnel took three persons into custody on suspicion and interrogating them.

TTD Joint Executive Officer Tirumala Srinivasa Raju, speaking to the media, said he too came to know about the fake laddu tokens after the media broke the news. Replying to the repeated queries, he said the Vigilance personnel, who were probing the irregularity, would submit report directly to Executive Officer for initiating action, he said. Meanwhile, TTD press manager Gowthami said at this stage she was not able to make any statement.