Four folk artistes of the district, who were on an indefinite hunger strike, for the last four days outside the TTD administrative building have withdrawn their protest on Monday.
The withdrawal follows an assurance from TTD executive officer LV Subramanyam that he would redress all their demands.
Following the TTD management’s decision to reduce the number of programmes of district folk artistes from 1,080 to 576, artistes took up relay hunger strikes from July 24 to August 16 demanding the TTD to revoke their decision.
As there was no response, they launched an indefinite hunger strike on August 17.
It may be recalled that four folk artistes including, T Munendra, A Babu, B Amarnath and B Chinnaswamy had gone on a fast.
They threatened to continue their fast till their demands were fulfilled and said that they will not hesitate to obstruct the proceedings of the TTD trust board meeting, which took place on Tirumala on Monday.
Against this backdrop, representatives of the folk artistes, leaders of political parties and civic associations held discussions with TTD officials on Sunday evening, where the TTD authorities agreed to the demands of the folk artistes.
Later, on Monday morning, TTD EO Subramanyam visited the protest camp and served lemon juice to the protestors.
Speaking on the occasion, Subramanyam accepted the demands placed by the folk artistes to provide 1,080 programmes to artistes from Chittoor district and another set of 1,080 programmes to folk artistes from other districts of the state.
Stating that they will adopt a proper system for streamlining the existing system, he said that all necessary steps will be taken to increase opportunities for folk artistes.