Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Agiripalli jewellery made public

— PHOTO: CH. VIJAYA BHASKAR

Stock-taking:Revenue and endowments officials assessing the jewellery of Sri Sobhanachala Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Agiripalli in Krishna district, at the Sub-collector's office in Vijayawada on Monday.

VIJAYAWADA: After a gap of about 20 years, the jewellery of Sri Sobhanachala Lakshmi Narasimha Swamivari Devasthanam, Agiripalli was made public on Monday.

The officials of Endowments and Revenue departments opened the locker in the State Bank of India in which the jewellery was kept, and brought out gold and silver ornaments for weighing them in the presence of public representatives and the media at sub-collector's office.

The officials took out from the box 34 gold ornaments of a total weight of 4.816 kg and 15 silver items of a total weight of 24.201 kg. They valued the jewellery at Rs. 60 lakh as per the prevailing market rates. Interestingly, the total weight of the ornaments was nearly 2 kg more than what was entered in the available records. Officials explained this saying the quantity of the jewellery might have been entered incorrectly when it was weighed last time.

The locker was last opened in 1991, and since then no verification of jewellery was done. The other locker in the Andhra Bank was opened about six months back on account of pressure exerted on the Endowment officials by the public representatives in the wake of reports of jewellery of the lord missing in Tirumala.

Nuzvid MLA Chinnam Ramakotaiah expressed his unhappiness over the safety of the ornaments of Sri Sobhanachala Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy and appealed to the authorities to ensure that the jewellery and ornaments were used every year to decorate the deity on important festive days and to exhibit at the temple for the people to have a look at them.

Sub Collector K. Dharma Reddy, Endowments Department Regional Joint Commissioner N. Somasekhar, Deputy Commissioner V. Trinadha Rao and others were present.

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