The prolonged anti-Telangana State stir in Seema-Andhra regions has not left even Gods untouched.
The incessant demonstrations, road blockades and bandhs have hit the religious tourism industry hard, resulting in a huge fall in the revenues of two most important temples of the State, Sri Venkateswara temple at Tirumala in Rayalaseema and Simhachalam temple in Visakhapatnam (Andhra).
Tirumala-Tirupati in Chittoor district, the destination of millions of pilgrims annually, has been hit hard as the anti-Telangana protesters have imposed several strikes and 48-hour blockades on the town creating a scare among the pilgrims.
According to Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) authorities, the offerings at the richest temple in the country have come down by more than one third. The number of pilgrims visiting the temple every day has come down by half to 60,000. On a good day the number would touch 2 lakh pilgrims per day. While on an average pilgrims used to wait for more than12 hours in queue for darshan, now the wait has come down to two to four hours.
"Daily offerings of money, gold and silver jewellery at the temple have come down from about Rs 5 crore a day to Rs 1.5 crore", said a senior official of the managing body TTD. The wealthiest temple in India has a reserve of more than 1,000 tons of gold, gold jewellery worth Rs 52,000 crore, apart from other assets, including cash running into several thousand crores.
The temple has term deposits of Rs 10,000 crores in various banks. The landed property of the temple across the country touches Rs 1,00,000 crore.
According to TTD officials, the annual revenue of the temple was around Rs 2,500 crore. The offerings from devotees alone yielded Rs 859 crore last year.
However, things have come to such a pass now that even the staff of the temple joined the agitations and strikes, badly hitting normal functioning at Tirumala. One of the senior-most priests of the temple Seshadri was also seen dancing in the anti-Telangana procession.
For the first time in several decades, the bus service to Tirumala, atop the seven hills and Tirupati town came to a complete halt when Road Transport Corporation employees joined the indefinite strike. However, after intervention by authorities the bus service to Tirumala was restored.
Apart from the RTC buses more than 2,500 private vehicles also used to ply on the route but their numbers have also come down. At one stage the protesters had threatened to stop them too.
Though the pilgrims are now able to move from Tirupati to Tirumala, their influx from other places within the State and country to Tirupati has become a big problem as RTC has not been running any bus service since August 12.
Even those coming by train are facing a lot of hardships as the frequent strikes result in the closure of restaurants. last week the TTD had to arrange food for the pilgrims as all hotels and shops were closed as part of a 48-hour-long strike.
The number of visitors to the temple touched an all time low of 28,000 during the strike on August 28 and 29. The hotel industry in Tirupati has also been hit hard as occupancy rates have come down to an unprecedented level.
Interestingly, many of the hotels are owned by prominent politicians, cutting across party lines. The situation is no different at the other famous temple Simhachalam in Visakhapatanam where the number of visitors has come down by 50 per cent and offerings had reduced to a trickle, hitting expansion plans.
P Anand Gajapati Raju, managing trustee of the ancient temple said only local residents were visiting the temple as the RTC strike had made it impossible for the outsiders to come to this popular destination in this port city.