TIRUMALA:The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Chairman Chadalavada Krishnamurthy along with 10 members of the new Trust Board took oath in the traditional way here on Saturday. The remaining members will take oath in a couple of days.
In the Meena Lagna muhurtham at 11.09 am at Bangaruvakili, TTD executive officer D Sambasiva Rao administered the oath to Kolla Lalitha Kumari, Pilli Anantha Lakshmi, Dola Sreebala Veeranjaneya Swamy, Putta Sudhakar Yadav, G Sayanna, AV Ramana, J Sekhar, Suchithra Ella, Sampath Ravi Narayanan and Pasupuleti Hariprasad.
Later, the executive officer also took oath as a member secretary of the board. All the members along with their families had general darshan instead of ‘Harathi’ and ‘Satari’ darshan due to heavy pilgrim rush at Tirumala.
Following the decision of the new Chairman to vacate the temple immediately after darshan, the board members went out of the temple so as to avoid inconvenience to general pilgrims.
All the members were honoured with ‘Veda Asheervadam’ at Ranganayakula Mandapam and were offered calendars, photo frames and books. The two joint executive officers - Srinivasa Raju and Pola Bhaskar - assisted the EO in organising the oath-taking ceremony. Chadalavada Krishnamurthy, soon after taking oath as the 48th Chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams Trust Board, asserted that he was a ‘Sevak’ of Lord Venkateswara and promised to render services to the multitude of visiting pilgrims as a volunteer.
Addressing newsmen outside the temple after having darshan of Lord Venkateswara, the Chairman reiterated that it was a God-given opportunity to him and promised to utilise every bit of it to serve the pilgrims to the best of his ability with the co-operation of board members, TTD management and employees. Chadalavada also said he would strive to realise the dream of AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu of developing Tirumala as a spiritual destination.
Later, the Chairman along with board members AV Ramana, Sayanna, Suchitra Ella visited the Annaprasadam complex and interacted with the pilgrims.