Tirumala, July 9, 2013: The laddu of Lord Venkateswara temple shrinks in weight whenever the hill temple experiences an increase in the pilgrim crowd. Though the prescribed weight of each laddu is 175 grams, the laddus which sold to the devotees during last weekend mostly weighed below 160 grams.

As the laddus are hand-made, it is humanly impossible to make every piece weigh the prescribed 175 grams. It was against this backdrop, the temple administration, after several rounds of discussions, had announced that any laddu weighing between 160 and 180 grams should not be considered as underweight. But the staff at laddu counters, were allegedly taking advantage of the relaxation.

Against the reports that the staff working at the laddu counters were swindling lakhs of rupees by resorting to the irregularity in the early ’90s, the management suspended 54 employees at one go and followed it up with introducing several checks and counter-checks in the selling process of the laddus.

This apart, the nationalised banks were given the responsibility of selling the laddus by involving their transitory employees.

The temple management had also set up electronic weighing machines at all the laddu issuing counters. The devotees were at liberty to report it to the higher authorities if they found the laddu weighing less. However, despite all the checks, there appears no change in the situation.

Two factors

Senior officials in private attribute two reasons for the continuance of practice. Firstly, the devotees generally feel exhausted after spending several hours in the darshan lines during the days of heavy crowd and are not bothered about the weight of laddu. Secondly, with little time left for them to undertake their return journey, they get away with whatever is given to them.

Source: The Hindu, DT. July 9, 2013.