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The test reports suggested that there was a high polyester content in the shawls and that they were not made of pure silk, the TTD stated. (File Photo)
The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Board Chairman B R Naidu on Tuesday ordered an inquiry by the Andhra Pradesh Anti-Corruption Bureau after an initial probe revealed that the prestigious silk shawls presented to visiting dignitaries were in fact made of polyester and not pure silk.
Naidu said that a Vigilance Department probe indicated the involvement of M/s VRS Export, Nagari, Chittoor district. According to a TTD report, 21,600 silk shawls have been ordered by the board since 2015, valued at approximately Rs 55 crore. Based on suspicion over the quality of the shawls, a Vigilance Department team procured stocks lying at various places and sent them for testing to Central Silk Board laboratories in Bengaluru and Dharmavaram.
The test reports suggested that there was a high polyester content in the shawls and that they were not made of pure silk, the TTD stated.
“As per TTD specifications for procuring silk shawls, the criteria are that the shawl’s fabric must be woven entirely from pure mulberry silk, carry a Silk Mark label authenticated by the Silk Mark Organisation of India, and use tested zari free of gold and silver,” the report said.
It listed other criteria – that the woven warp and weft must contain 20/22 denier filature silk, “with strands twisted, doubled, degummed, dyed and used as threads, giving a minimum count of 31.5 denier”.
“The fabric must have 100 ends per inch, 80 picks per inch, a width of 1 metre, a length of 2.3 metres, a double-sided 2.5-inch border, and the citation of ‘Om Namo Venkatesaya’ in Telugu and Sanskrit with Shanku, Chakra and Namam in the centre. The weight of the shawls must be 180g, including at least 110g of degummed and dyed silk, with the balance drawn from tested zari and border elements,” the report stated.
Officials said when the TTD, which is conducting checks on all procurement to ensure quality, inspected the stocks of silk shawls at Tirumala, they began to suspect that the fabric was not silk and sent samples for testing.
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“It was fake silk and not pure silk, with a lot of polyester involved in the fabric,” the Vigilance Department submitted.
Additionally, the silk hologram that marks the quality of the shawls was missing in some of the samples.
“This is in breach of the tender requirements and constitutes fraud, hence the ACB probe,” the TTD said. “The present contract awarded to M/s VRS Exports and two of its associate firms stands cancelled now.”
This comes months after allegations that the ghee used to prepare the sacred Tirupati laddu prasadam between 2019 and 2024 was adulterated. A probe allegedly revealed that a blacklisted dairy firm managed to supply fake ghee — contaminated with palm oil, palm kernel oil, and other chemicals — to replace genuine ghee in the laddu preparation, thereby compromising both the sanctity and safety of the prasadam offered to devotees.
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