Amidst a raging controversy over the quality of ghee and alleged presence of animal fat in the laddus distributed to the devotees of Lord Venkateswara shrine here, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) on Friday said ghee suppliers to the temple body took advantage of the lack of in-house adulteration testing facility and also not making use of outside facilities.

Lab tests had revealed the presence of animal fat and lard in chosen samples, TTD Executive Officer J Shyamala Rao said.

Addressing a press conference over the quality of ghee being used to make Tirupati laddus (consecrated sweets), especially in the wake of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's claim that animal fat was used to make them, the executive officer noted that ghee quality has fallen drastically.

"Now the reason for the lack of quality is not having an in-house lab, sending the samples to outside labs for testing and unviable rates," he said.

The EO highlighted that the suppliers took advantage of these deficiencies.

The TTD administers the popular hill shrine that attracts lakhs of devotees throughout the year.

CM Naidu had earlier expressed concern over the quality of ghee as well as Laddu and highlighted complaints of the presence of animal fat in the sweet, Rao told reporters here.

Subsequently, suppliers were warned of blacklisting if they provided poor quality ghee.

Later, samples of ghee were sent for analysis after four truckloads of ghee were not found to be of good quality.

A lab value indicated the sample was adulterated with Lard (pig fat) also, Rao said.

"All the four reports off samples gave similar results. So we immediately stopped the supplies. And the blacklisting of the contractor was initiated and the procedure to impose penalties would also be initiated. Now, the legal process will start," he added.

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