A Long the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, fishermen'swelfare committee has been working for their betterment for the last few years. The committee has been organising single teacher schools, medical centers and sanskar kendras in the villages and during Guruji'scentenary celebrations recently it conducted Matsya Narayana-swamy Rath Yatra. There was tremendous response to this Yatra by the villagers. They developed devotion and keen interest in maintaining temples in their villages.
Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD) has taken into consideration that the first Avatar of Sri Mahavishnu was Matsya and hence decided to train selected fishermen as temple priests. T.T.D after consultations with experts in Agama Sastra and Chief Priests of famous temples of Vijayawada, Annava-ram and Simhachalam evolved syllabus for training of fishermen as temple priests. As part of this, it began an experiment for the first time from Uppada village, Kottapalli Mandal, East Godavari District of A.P.
After request by the fishermen welfare committee ably supported by Dharma Prachar Samiti secretary Shri Raghavacharyulu and by T.T.D Executive Officer Shri K.V. Ramanachary (I.A.S), training classes were conducted for 40 fishermen from March 24 to April 1, 2008 at Tirupathi. In the inagural speech Shri Karunakar Reddy TTD Chairman stressed the need for protecting Hindu Dharma and Culture.
A laudable step has been taken up by TTD which goes a long way to infuse confidence among neglected sections of the society and to eliminate caste discrimination and cultivate social harmony.
(FOC)
