New Delhi: Amid the massive row over the laddoos offered as prasad at Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati Temple, the Karnataka government has ordered all the temples in the state to use only home-grown Nandini ghee to make prasad.
A government circular said that over 35,000 temples in the state have now been ordered to mandatorily use only Nadhini ghee of the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) for making laddoos or any other type of sweets as offerings.
“It is hereby instructed that at all notified temples that come under the Karnataka State Religious Endowment Department to only use Nandini ghee compulsorily for ‘sevas’ (services), lamps, preparation of all kinds of prasadas, and at ‘Dasoha Bhavans’ (where food is served),” the government order said.
Karnataka Minister Ramalinga Reddy said that 99 per cent of the temples in the state are already using Nandini ghee, which will be extended to all temples now.
Notably, last year, the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government stopped sourcing the Nandini ghee for the laddoos from KMF, after nearly 15 years of association, over pricing issues. However, the KMF has resumed supplying its famous Nandini ghee to TTD from August after Chandrababu Naidu’s directive to improve the quality of laddoos.
The Tirupati Temple kitchen, which produces around 3 lakh laddoos daily, requires enormous quantities of ingredients, including 1,400 kg of ghee and other essentials like cashew nuts, raisins, cardamoms, gram flour, and sugar. Most of the ghee in question was reportedly sourced from Tamil Nadu’s Dindigul district, NDTV reported.