YSRCP member and Rajya Sabha MP Vijaya Sai Reddy raised a valid question in the Rajya Sabha recently. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams pays nearly Rs. 120 Crores every year, in the form of GST, to the Central Government. GST is collected even towards the rooms that devotees book atop the Tirumala hills. The tax that TTD is paying is on par with other organisations in the country, raising a lot of concerns.
Talking about this in the Rajya Sabha, Vijaya Sai said that the Bharatiya Janata Party should exempt TTD from this GST payment, especially since the BJP considers itself very much bound to Hinduism and protecting Hinduism in the country. Vijaya Sai also said that the TTD is an organisation that was established purely out of the devotion and belief that people have on the Tirumala temple, and not out of commercial reasons.
Vijaya Sai asked the Modi government to stop collecting taxes from Tirumala, and show their true support towards the Tirumala temple. In the past too, several religious heads and swamijis have appealed to the Center to not collect taxes from TTD, but the Center chose to ignore their pleas. It is now to be seen if the same thing will happen now, or if the Center will do something about it.