TIRUPATI: The Tirumala

Devasthanams' contribution to the Andhra Pradesh state government has been spiked from Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 50 crore, following the decision of the Andhra Pradesh state government to bring in amendments to the

Endowments Act.

Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams - the richest temple administration in the country will now have to cough up Rs 50 crore annually in the form of contributions to the state government of Andhra Pradesh towards the Common Good Fund (CGF), Endowments Administrative Fund (EAF) and Archaka Welfare Fund (AWF).

The state government of Andhra Pradesh sought the

to enhance its contributions in a lump-sum form under the three different heads through a memo, following which the TTD trust board under the chairmanship of YV Subba Reddy accorded approvals for the state government's proposal during the revision of the TTD's budget estimates held on the sidelines of the TTD trust board meeting on December 28.

According to TTD sources, in 2012, the then endowments commissioner represented to the then TTD trust board to enhance the CGF and the EAF to Rs 15 crore and Rs 10 crore. Following the request, the then TTD trust board passed a resolution to hike the TTD contributions accordingly and forwarded the same to the state government to modify the act.

But with the state government failing to modify the act, TTD continued to pay Rs.2.25 crore until now as the provision did not change.

However, the present government has now decided to amend the act and proposed further amends to the earlier proposal which did not include a hike in the Archaka welfare fund from Rs 50 lakh to Rs. 25 crore.

The AP government proposed to enhance TTD's contribution to the Common Good Fund from Rs 1.25 crore to Rs 15 crore, Endowment administrative fund from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 10 crore and Archaka welfare fund from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 25 crore. The state government also proposed to seek Rs. 16 crore towards salaries for archakas working with the endowments department.

Besides spiking up TTD's annual contributions to Rs 50 crore, the state government has also proposed to further hike the contributions by 10% once every 5 years.

Earlier apart from the annual contribution of Rs 1.25 crore to CGF, TTD used to contribute Rs 16 crore annually towards the "Dhoopa-Deepa Naivedyam" scheme. So, the total contribution of TTD to the state government stood at Rs 17.25 crore annually until now.

And in addition to this, the state government of AP puts forward several requests to the TTD to provide financial assistance to uplift endowments temples and other temples across the state. And these requests used to pose an additional financial burden on the TTD funds to the tune of approximately Rs 30 - Rs 50 crore every year.

It is learnt that during the TTD trust board meeting which approved the state government's proposal to hike TTD contributions to state government to Rs 50 crore from Rs 2.5 crore, several trust board members of the TTD trust board voiced concerns and opined that the temple body should now turn down undue requests for financial assistance to renovate/uplift other temples across the state, especially with the TTD's contributions to the state government now hiked.