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Visakhapatnam: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) ordered an investigation into yet another procurement scandal that rocked the temple board.
The investigation is into the purchase of Pattu Sariga dupattas, typically given to donors, visiting dignitaries. The fraud involves procurement of clothing worth Rs 55 crore over the last 10 years from a single company and their associates.
Vigilance inquiry finds fake silk shawls procured:
TTD board Chairman BR Naidu ordered the probe after a vigilance inquiry found that fake silk shawls were supplied in violation of tender conditions.
The purchase committee examined a proposal to procure 21,600 silk shawls and sent it to the board. The board in turn asked the vigilance committee to verify if the silk dupattas procured under existing agreements met the high standards of TTD.
The rules state that the fabric must be woven fully from pure Mulberry silk and carry a silk mark label verified by Silk Mark Organisation of India and use tested zari free of gold and silver. The fabric should have 100 ends per inch, 80 picks per inch, a width of a metre and a length of 2.3 metres, a double-sided 2.5 inch border and a citation of ‘Om Namoh Vankatesaya’ in Telugu and Sanskrit.
Dupattas were supplied by M/s VRS Export, Nagari, a supplier that TTD used for a long time.
What did silk board labs find?
Vigilance officials collected samples from fresh stocks from Tirupati godown and sent the samples to Central Silk Board Laboratories in Bengaluru and Dharmavaram for tests.
The labs found clear violations and reported that the shawls were made from Polyester x Polyester instead of Silk x Silk, violating norms of the tender. The compulsory silk hologram was also missing, the labs found.
The company and its associates had supplied clothing of about Rs 55 crore to the TTD between 2015 and 2025. The vigilance inquiry concluded that the company had cheated the TTD by supplying Polyester and recommended criminal action against him. Based on these findings, the board has asked the ACB to conduct further probe and cancelled its existing tenders.
