TIRUPATI:

's jewellery reported missing from the well guarded treasury at the administrative building of the Tirumala

Devasthanams in 2017 which was exposed two years later in August 2019, was found to be ''lost'' even after the temple administration completed the process of re-verification of the full inventory stock at its treasury now.

It may be recalled that, after the sensational expose in August last year,

EO Anil Kumar Singhal confirmed to the media then, that two gold rings, two necklaces worth Rs 4.18 lakh, one gold coin worth Rs 71,259, one silver crown weighing 5.4 kg and worth approximately Rs 2.32 lakh, silver coated copper coins and aluminium coins worth approximately Rs 14,448 were reported short during stock verification at its treasury at TTD's administrative building.

Though the jewellery were reported to have gone missing from the TTD treasury in 2017, the incident came to light only two years later in 2019.

Following the development, TTD EO announced the temple administration would carry out the exercise of re-verification of all the jewellery stock at its treasury besides initiating recovery proceedings against assistant executive officer M Srinivasulu, the then in-charge of the treasury from where the jewellery reportedly went missing at that point of time.

After four months of re-verifying all the jewellery stock at its treasury, officials of the TTD submitted their report to EO Anil Kumar Singhal about 15 days ago, in which they stated that all the articles including the 5.4 kg weighing silver crown, were found to be still missing and lost.

Now that it has been established that the missing jewellery has been found lost once and for all, TTD sources said the temple administration which had already initiated recovery proceedings against AEO M Srinivasulu to recover the value of the jewellery from his monthly salary, will now initiate disciplinary proceedings against him.

Despite TTD claims of having stringent security measures in place to safeguard the hoards of jewellery in its custody at its treasury which is a high-security zone, the fresh re-verification of all jewellery resulting confirming the missing jewellery as lost, exposes the chinks in the existing security set-up of the richest temple administration in the country.