Jagan inaugurates Parakamani building in Tirumala, worships again

TIRUMALA: As part of his two-day visit to Tirumala, Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy inaugurated the new Parakamani building here on Wednesday morning. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) constructed the building at a cost of Rs 23 crores near the main temple complex. The Chief Minister also opened the VPR Rest House.

The new Parakamani building features advanced facilities like coin segregating machinery and state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. The building will be used for carrying out the Parakamani exercise to count and account the money received in hundi offerings from the devotees. Common devotees are also invited to take part in Parakamani as devotees feel privileged to be a part of the exercise, widely regarded as sacred.

Before inaugurating the Parakamani building, Jagan also had a darshan of Lord Sri Venkateshwara in the early hours of Wednesday.

Vedic scholars offered him teertham and prasadam besides blessing him by chanting vedic hymns at the Ranganayakula mandapam. This is the second time YS Jagan had the darshan of the Lord since Tuesday evening. Coinciding with the first day of the Brahmotsavams, he visited the hill shrine on Tuesday evening and presented customary silk robes to the presiding deity before taking part in the 'Srivari vahana seva'.

The Parakamani building was constructed with donations received from devotees. The building provides state-of-the-art facilities such as strong rooms to store money, bulletproof mirrors for the devotees to witness the counting of donations, electronic machinery to facilitate hassle-free movement of money, high-tech surveillance equipment, toilets and other facilities for the convenience of the staff.

The TTD, which had arranged battery cars to shift the Hundis from the temple to the Parakamani building, had set up an automatic segregation machine at a cost of Rs. 2.5 crores to separate the coins and notes.