HYDERABAD: The rivalry between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh residual, fighting like brothers resentful over the last year, has acquired a religious tinge.
With fork, Andhra Pradesh retained his famous Sri Venkateswara Swamy pilgrimage to Tirumala temple, Sri Mallikarjuna Swamy temple at Srisailam and Sri Kalahasthi temple in Chittoor. Telangana, on the other hand, while having its share of temples, has none to match the pull of the big three.
Now the chief K Chandrasekhar Rao Telangana minister has managed to correct the “wrong” – build your own Tirumala fitness of Yadagirigutta, or temple of Sri Narasimha Swamy Laskhmi.
Yadagirigutta began to receive attention only in the last year. Last October, KCR declared its plans to develop along the lines of Tirumala. Temple authorities say that since announcing his plan, flow of visitors has increased and in a few days, especially on Saturdays, the numbers touching 50,000. Revenues of the temple are also starting to reflect the growing public interest in Yadagirigutta.
As against Rs 66.58cr temple won in 2013-14, revenue increased to Rs 73.31cr in 2014-15. Yadagirigutta is around 50 km from Hyderabad and well connected by rail and road. But the number of pilgrims is a mere 20000 or 25000, and also in auspicious days, unlike Tirumala, where the count is up to a lakh per day. What Tirumala wins in 10 days, it takes a year to the temple to raise Yadagirigutta.
Tirumala, located in the hills Seshachalam is also well known for the seven hill to climb pilgrims prefer to trek in the foothills of Tirupati.
Yadagirigutta other hand, is in one hillock and suffers compared. Something witty, Telangana government has had eight others dotting the hills near Yadagirigutta field, and these are now part of the development plans.
So now, if Tirumala has seven hills, Yadagirigutta have nine. And after rename Yadadri (which sounds similar to Seshadri, one of the seven hills of Tirumala), the government created in February Telangana Yadagirigutta Temple Development Authority to oversee the construction of a re-imagined creating a complex ” perfect pilgrimage “, spread over nearly 2,000 acres in the foothills Yadadri.
