TIRUPATI: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams has cancelled the land allotted to businessman Vijay Mallya for construction of a guest house. The land parcel was earlier allotted to Mallya at Dharmagiri in Tirumala.
The Tirupati trust is now planning to allot this site to a new donor under the cottage donation scheme. The TTD board of trustees allotted land to Mallya through a resolution on November 27, 1991. Mallya entered into a preliminary agreement with the TTD on December 8, 1993, two years after the TTD passed the resolution.
The construction of the guest house with nine suites was inaugurated on December 24, 1997. It was handed over to the Tirupati trust, which named it as 'Venkata Vijayam'.
While neither the Tirupati trust nor Mallya pursued the signing of the final agreement, it was only after 24 years that the TTD decided to re-engage with Mallya and communicated its orders on October 11, 2017. A committee, which was recently constituted by the trust board to conduct a study on renovation and reconstruction of existing guest houses under the cottage donation scheme, communicated to the board that a final agreement was never entered into by the TTD with Mallya and that no privileges were being extended to the donor as such.
Inspection by TTD found 'inhospitable conditions' The committee also told the trust board that the engineering department of the TTD, which conducted an inspection of the guest house, found "inhospitable conditions" due to lack of maintenance over the years.
The findings said the false ceiling of the guest house was completely damaged and there were leakages in the slab. The wooden panelling and wooden ceiling, water lines and sanitary fittings are also damaged, the engineering department said in its report.
The trust board then served a show-cause notice to Mallya on March 21, 2023, seeking an explanation and informing him why TTD should not cancel the land allotted to him on grounds of deserting the guest house and leaving its maintenance unattended for several years.
The show-cause notice returned to the TTD on April 3, 2023, as the notice was sent to his old address at Vittal Mallya road in Bengaluru, where he no longer lives.
With all options of establishing a contact with the fugitive Mallya closed, the temple trust passed a resolution on June 19, 2023, announcing to cancel the guest house land allotted to him and seek a fresh donation from a new donor for 5 crore or above, for the renovation or reconstruction of Venkata Vijayam guest house.