Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has alleged that during the previous YSRCP regime, animal fat was used to prepare the Tirupati laddu prasadam at Tirumala. The opposition has rubbished the allegation and challenged Naidu to provide evidence. The allegation and response Naidu told a meeting of the NDA legislature party at Amaravati on Wednesday (September 18): “Even Tirumala laddu was made with substandard ingredients. They used animal fat instead of ghee.” The TDP-led NDA government had sanitised the process and improved the quality of the laddus, he claimed. The YSRCP rejected the allegation as “malicious”. Senior YSRCP leader Y V Subba Reddy, who is also a former chairman of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) which runs the Sri Venkateswara Temple at Tirupati, said: “Naidu will stoop to any level for political gains. The ghee used (for the laddus) was of top quality derived from the milk of indigenous cows of Rajasthan and Gujarat. His comments are malicious.” Another former TTD chairman, Bhumana Karunakar Reddy, also rubbished Naidu’s allegations. The officials involved in procuring the ghee had worked both under the previous Naidu government (2014-19) and Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP regime (2019-24), and no questions were ever raised about the quality, he said. Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president Y S Sharmila stressed the need to protect the sanctity of the revered temple, and asked Naidu to order an inquiry if he believed his allegations were genuine. The signature Tirupati laddu prasadam The famous prasadam of Lord Venkateswara is now more than 300 years old; the temple at Tirupati started offering the laddu to the Lord and as prasadam to devotees in 1715. The prasadam is prepared in a special kitchen known as Potu, by laddu makers who belong to a particular sect that has been doing this work for centuries. The laddu makers have to shave their heads, and they have to wear a single clean cloth while in the kitchen. The first laddu of each batch is offered to the Lord, which is then mixed with the rest of the preparation and distributed to the devotees. The temple offers one laddu free to everyone while exiting the temple, and larger quantities of the prasadam can be purchased at Rs 50 per laddu. In 2014, the Registrar of Patents, Trademarks and Geographical Indications awarded GI status to the Tirupati laddu. This means that no one can sell a laddu by naming it “Tirupati laddu”. Ghee and other ingredients Pure, aromatic, high-quality ghee is one of the 10 ingredients that go into the preparation of the laddu. Apart from ghee, chickpea gram flour, sugar, small sugar cubes, cashew nut, cardamom, camphor, and raisins go into the preparation of the laddu. Every day, at least 400-500 kg of ghee, 750 kg of cashew nuts, 500 kg of raisins, and 200 kg of cardamom are used to prepare the laddus and other offerings to the Lord. The TTD procures the ghee for the laddus every six months, and purchases 5 lakh kg of ghee every year. “Procurement is done through an online bidding process, and many manufacturers of pure ghee participate. TTD teams visit new manufacturers or suppliers to check the factory and the premises to ensure that the ghee is prepared in hygienic conditions. They check for quality of the ghee, and whether the factory is located at a place where there is a fresh supply of milk,” an official had told The Indian Express in August 2023. According to this official, the quality of the ghee is tested on several parameters, including moisture content, aroma, free fatty acids, mineral oil, foreign colours, melting point, and rancidity. “If the ghee fails on any one of these parameters, it is rejected. From July 2022 to July 2023, TTD rejected at least 42 truckloads of ghee from various suppliers for failing to meet the standards,’’ the official said. Amul, which has forayed into Andhra Pradesh in recent years, is one of the main suppliers of the ghee, the official said. There was a political controversy last year over the discontinuation of Karnataka's famous Nandini brand of ghee, marketed by the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF). TTD officials had then assured that the taste of the prasadam would not suffer, because KMF was one of several suppliers of ghee to the temple kitchen, and had bid only three times over the previous decade — in 2014, 2019, and 2021. Strict quality controls at kitchen The TTD has a state-of-the-art food testing laboratory that conducts quality checks on a laddu from each batch. Each laddu must have precise quantities of cashew, sugar, and cardamom, and the weight of the laddu should be 175 grams. (The precise measurements are also a requirement for the GI tag.) “All the ingredients are brought to the kitchen only after going through stringent quality control checks at our state-of-the-art lab. There are 600 special cooks who are experts in laddu making who prepare the laddus in two shifts. We prepare up to 3.5 lakh laddus on average daily, and up to 4 lakh on special occasions or festivals,’’ R Srinivasulu, the head of the Lord's kitchen, had told The Indian Express last year. “For nearly two centuries, firewood was used in the kitchen, but over the last few decades we have started using LPG and it is now a fully modern kitchen. The cooks undergo stringent health checks often. Every inch of the kitchen is covered by CCTV cameras. Three conveyor belts move the laddus out of the kitchen to the required places for distribution,’’ Srinivasulu said. Laddu samples are often sent for tests to the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad. The TTD consults the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Hyderabad on hygiene and safety, and follows guidelines of the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore.
