Tirupati temple richer than Nestle, Wipro and ONGC

Lord Venkateswara’s Tirupati temple’s net worth stood at over Rs 2.5 lakh crore amounting to roughly $30 billion making it the owner of assets more than the market capitalization of IT giant Wipro, food and beverage conglomerate Nestle as well as state-owned oil firms ONGC and IOC.

The declared assets of the temple comprise 10.25 tonnes of gold deposits, 2.5 tonnes of gold jewellery, Rs 16,000 crore deposits in the bank, and around 960 properties across India. A temple official said that the trust of the hill temple ‘Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams’ (TTD) is growing richer with each passing day as the cash and gold offerings made by devotees at the temple continue to rise and fixed deposits in banks are also generating regular income.

At the current rate, TTD’s net assets stand more than many blue-chip firms. Indian IT giant Wipro has a capital of Rs 2.14 lakh crore. Similarly Indian unit of Nestle has a market cap of Rs 1.96 lakh crore. State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) were also valued less than the temple trust. Automobile associates Mahindra and Mahindra and Tata Motors along with infrastructure developers DLF, Coal India ltd, and Vedanta were also left behind.

TTD’s annual budget for 2022-23 of about Rs 3,100 crore breaks up as projected over Rs 668 crore in the form of interests from cash deposits in banks. Additionally, Rs 1,000 crore income was predicted in the form of cash offerings alone. Other than that gold and jewellery, several properties in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Odisha, Haryana, Maharashtra, and New Delhi have also been donated to the temple trust by several devotees.