Comments
State Bank of India (SBI) holds a lion’s share of Lord Balaji’s investments made by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) in the form of cash and gold deposits which have gone up significantly over the last three years.
As per the TTD’s data for the period between June 2019 and September 2022, SBI had attracted nearly ₹5,348 crore of cash deposits. In addition, it also holds 9,819 kg of gold deposits. SBI is followed by HDFC Ltd with deposits of ₹2,123 crore among the list of 23 banks and regional rural banks.
It is noteworthy that the total investments of TTD in banks have gone up significantly from ₹13,025 crore in June 30, 2019 to ₹15,938 crore as on September 2022. The total gold deposits too went up from 7,340 kg to 10,258 kg in the same period. Only two banks, SBI and Indian Overseas Bank, currently have gold deposits of 9,819 kg and 438 kg respectively.
Covid’s impact on Balaji’s Hundi
According to a senior TTD official, the pandemic’s adverse impact on Balaji’s Hundi collection has been offset by ‘a prudent’ financial management and the surge in investments offset any major revenue loss. In 2020, Tirumala Venkateshwara was shut down for over 80 days on account of Covid-19, but now, the snaking queues of devotees are back in sight. It took about six months for the devotees’ numbers to reach half of the pre-Covid times after reopening of the temple. In pre-Covid times, 75,000 pilgrims had darshan every day. From the last six months, the number of pilgrims taking Darshan has finally reached the pre-Covid levels.
The daily hundi collection too has surpassed pre-Covid average level of ₹2.5 crore and now hovers in the range of around ₹4 crore.
As per norms, TTD invests its surplus funds in scheduled commercial banks by inviting quotations from eligible scheduled banks/institutions and has resolved to not to invest in Central or State Government securities. The gold offerings by the devotees are sent to the government mint for melting and refining. They are then invested under the Gold Monetisation scheme for long term gold deposits of 12 years.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.