The Hindu : TTD puts its services on the web

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 25, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

TTD puts its services on the web

By Our Special Correspondent.

Tirupati april 24 . The TTD, the official custodian of the famous hill temple of Lord Venkateswara and scores of its other subsidiary departments, has put some of its prime pilgrim-related services on the web to cater in particular to the needs of NRI pilgrims.

According to P.Krishnaiah, Executive Officer of the TTD, the aim behind going in for the hi-tech scheme was to ensure that the TTD was in tune with the latest advances in the IT field and to use them in extending hassle-free service to the pilgrims.

The three important services covered in the first phase of the scheme are, E-Hundi, E-Seva and E-Accommodation.

Under the E-Hundi scheme, any devotee across the globe could contribute to the ''Srivari Hundi'' (Tirumala temple hundi) through the internet and the offering made would be acknowledged over the net and a receipt provided to the devotee through a printer. The offerings are, however, subject to the credit card ceilings of the devotees.

As for the E-Seva and E-Accommodation, a devotee could book the sevas and accommodation at Tirumala through the internet but the devotee has to declare his/her identity by revealing either their driving licence number, passport details, PAN card number, or voter's identity card. The devotee would get a computer print-out as receipt which he has to produce at the Reception Office in the TTD's Padmavathi Guest House, Tirumala. His/her identify cards would be physically verified at the office and the tickets booked through internet, saving them from the ordeal of standing in long-winding queues in front of the ticket counters and guest houses.

According to a TTD note, the devotees could access the above services through e-booking logo on the home page of the TTD's web site www.tirumala.org. The services would be listed in the next page and one could choose the category of the ticket required and the number of tickets and furnish the details. Once the required details were furnished, the link would take to the Citibank payment gateway for processing the payment.

The E-Seva service, which was formally launched by the TTD recently at Hyderabad in the presence of the Chief Minister, N.Chandrababu Naidu, is expected to become fully and officially operational from April 27 when a computer-savvy Mr. Naidu would be on the Tirumala hills on a pilgrimage cum official trip.

Mr. Krishnaiah said that for the present only 10 p.c. of the quota earmarked for advance booking would be reserved for the E-Seva category. .

As another major step towards going hi-tech, the TTD would be covering the entire 10-km radius around the temple through closed-circuit television network. The project is being implemented at the instance of the Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, to meet the increasing security exigencies on the hills in the context of the deteriorating security atmosphere in the country in the post-September 11 period. The TTD's EO has said that in all about 70 TV cameras/scanners might have to be installed at different places on the hills to cover the entire area. A Hyderabad-based Government of India Unit, Mecon Ltd, has been entrusted with the task of preparing the plan and designs.

As part of further computerising the TTD administration, a technical group comprising among others experts from IIT, Chennai and Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore has short-listed six leading I.T companies such as TCS, Siemens, Sathyam Computers etc, to supply the required hardware and software. The 3-member TTD's Specified Authority, the all-powerful policy making body headed by the Additional Chief Secretary, Mr. C.Arjun Rao, has reviewed all these projects during its two-day session which concluded at Tirumala today.

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