The issue of animal fat in the ghee used in the famous laddu prasad of Tirupati Balaji temple of Andhra Pradesh has become a big issue. In fact, the ruling TDP has claimed that ghee containing animal fat has been used in Jagan Mohan Reddy’s government. However, YSRCP has denied this allegation.
Tirupati Balaji Temple is a holy place for the devotees of Lord Venkateshwara, devotees from all over the world come to visit this temple and take laddu prasad as blessings. 3 lakh laddus are made in the temple every day.
On the matter, Union Health Minister JP Nadda has spoken to the state Chief Minister Chandrababu and has asked for an investigation under food safety norms. He also said that action will be taken on the basis of the report after the investigation.
Where does the temple prasad material come from?
To make around 3 lakh laddus daily, the temple administration uses around 1400 KG of ghee, cashews, raisins, cardamom, gram flour and sugar.
According to a report by NDTV, the temple’s management committee, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), purchases prasad material through e-auction, which costs around Rs 500 crore annually.
Only those agencies are allowed to participate in this e-auction which are registered with Andhra Pradesh Technological Services and have Agmark and FSSAI licenses.
The consignment which has been in the news includes 10 tankers of ghee of ‘AR Dairy Food’ of Tamil Nadu. 4 tankers have been stopped on suspicion of adulteration and samples have been sent for testing.
Giving clarification on this entire matter, AR Dairy has said that their consignment has passed several lab tests and they have documents to prove this. The dairy also said that they supply only 0.01% ghee to Tirumala temple.
Amul also issued a clarification
In some posts on social media, it was being claimed that the dairy company Amul also supplies ghee to the Tirupati Balaji temple. After which, Amul has clarified on this issue that Amul never supplied ghee to TTD.
The matter also reached the Supreme Court
The entire incident came to light after the Naidu government issued a report on July 17, stating that ghee samples taken from Tirupati contained fish oil, beef fat and pork lard.
Former Chief Minister of the state Reddy said, ‘This is a false report and Naidu is using faith for politics.’
Prasad controversy now a petition to the Supreme Court The petition filed alleges violation of Article 25 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of religion.
