Annavaram Veera Venkata Satyanarayana Swami’s ‘prasadam’ is very popular among devotees who visit this shrine from different parts of Andhra Pradesh and other states.
However, the structure of the present kitchen building, including slab and pillars, are becoming weak and it is partly in a dilapidated condition. Taking stock of the situation, Executive Officer M. Jitendra called for a meeting of temple engineers and decided to invite third party team to inspect the structure. The EO apprised the situation to the trust board and then wrote a letter to expert team of JNTU, Kakinada, and the team is going to visit the temple on Monday and give a report.
Hydraulic machines
According to the EO, they found the cracks on the slab and pillars of the kitchen where ‘prasadam’is being made when two donors — Matte Prasad and Matte Srinivas, managing directors of Lalitha brand rice — have come forward to donate hydraulic machines to lift huge utensils (kalai). They said that it is not possible to install the machine without having a strong slab to fix it. Presently, 35,000 to 40,000 packets of ‘prasadam’ are being made every day in the kitchen (potu) and during auspicious days and festivals the quantity will go up. “We have to get permission from the Endowments Commissioner to shift the present kitchen to another place or for constructing a new one,”Mr. Jitendra said.
Two kalyanamandapams
Annavaram Devasthanam is a place where most of the middle and lower middle class people want to perform wedding of their children. There will be mad rush during the wedding season. At present, only 466 rooms are available and there is a proposal to construct another choultry with 138 rooms by the temple authorities. Two donors from Peddapuram — Matte Prasad and Srinivas — came forward to construct two kalyanamandapams free of cost. Mr. Jitendra said that donors will build the marriage halls with their engineers and the Endowments Commissioner has to give permission to allot land to them.
