After a video of a Tirumala pilgrim went viral with the claim that the laddu he bought at the Venkateswara temple weighed too less, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) issued a clarification, saying all laddus are made with a uniform weight of 160 to 180 gm. TTD in its statement said that the devotee was mistaken about the weight, as there was a technical problem with the weighing machine and the contract staff present lacked awareness. TTD said that the laddus are weighed in trays by the workers before being sold at counters and that they were prepared in a transparent manner.
In the video, a man is seen asking the staff at a laddu counter to weigh individual laddus, with the machine showing that they weigh 90 to 100 gm. The man is then heard blaming Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and TTD Chairman YV Subba Reddy for “cheating” devotees. In its statement, TTD said: “Usually, if any problem arises at the laddu counters, if you inform the staff present, TTD has a system to solve the problem then and there. But it is deplorable that the devotee is making such accusations against TTD on social media without doing so.”
The famous Tirupati laddus are prepared in a temple kitchen called ‘potu’ and sold as religious offerings to people who visit the temple. The kitchen has the capacity to make about 3,00,000 laddus in a day. The laddu even has a geographical indication (GI) tag under The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999. “TTD has never compromised on the weight and quality of laddus There is no change in the size and weight of the laddus as alleged by the devotee. TTD requests devotees to not believe such misconceptions shown on social media,” the statement said.