Last year, a big problem happened when ghee (a type of clarified butter) used in sacred “laddu prasadam” at the Tirumala temple in Andhra Pradesh was found to be mixed with animal fat. The ghee was supplied by a company based in Uttarakhand, called Bhole Baba Organic Dairy Private Limited. This company had previously been banned by the temple authorities in 2022 for not meeting quality standards.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and a special team found out that the ghee was sent to the temple through another company called Sri Vyshnavi Dairy Specialities and a third one named A R Dairy. Four people were arrested: directors of Bhole Baba Dairy, Pomil Jain and Bipin Jain; CEO of Sri Vyshnavi Dairy, Apurva Vinay Kant Chawda; and Raju Rajasekharan, the Managing Director of A R Dairy.
The police report revealed that Bhole Baba Dairy sold its ghee at ₹291 each to the temple under the name of Sri Vyshnavi Dairy. Over time, they managed to win contracts despite having their ghee rejected in previous quality checks.
In June 2022, during an inspection, it was reported that Bhole Baba Dairy didn’t have proper records, which led to their disqualification. However, the Jain brothers secretly became directors of Sri Vyshnavi Dairy and kept controlling the operations through this company.
AR Dairy, which has been selling milk to Sri Vyshnavi, joined with them to supply ghee to the temple. They created fake documents to show they could supply the required amount of ghee, even though they couldn’t. Investigators found that Bhole Baba Dairy was involved in cheating and supplying poor-quality ghee.
When complaints came from pilgrims about the bad quality of the laddu (a sweet), the temple tested the ghee and discovered it was mixed with other fats. The temple rejected four tankers of ghee, but they were secretly taken to Sri Vyshnavi Dairy instead of AR Dairy.
After the news about the bad ghee spread, the Jain brothers resigned from Sri Vyshnavi Dairy and new directors, who were actually their drivers, took over. The investigations are still ongoing, and people are very upset about the situation.
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