TTD advisor PVRK Prasad passes away

Retired IAS officer PVRK Prasad who was also an Additional Secretary and Media Advisor to former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and was remembered for his great services as the Executive Officer (EO) of Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) passed away of cardiac arrest in Hyderabad in the early hours of Monday. He was 77 and is survived by his wife, son and daughter. 

PVRK was an IAS office cadre and held several important responsibilities. He served PV Narasimha Rao between 1991 and 1996 and was a close aide to the PM. He introduced several reforms and projects in TTD between 1978 and 1982 when he was the EO and continued to be an advisor till his death.

He earned a lot of respect as the chairman of Visakhapatnam Port Trust. He was a gold medallist in MA English and completed LLB from Nagpur University.

He wrote a series of articles on Tirumala Tirupathi and its presiding deity Lord Venkateswara which are very popular. He was author of ‘Naham Kartha’, ‘Asalemi Jarigindante’ (What Actually Happened), ‘Tirumala Leelamrutham’ and ‘Tirumala Charitamrutam’.

In his book ‘Asalemi Jarigindante’ (2010), he spoke about Babri Masjid issue and claimed that PV Narasimha Rao himself planned to construct Ram temple in place of Babri Masjid to avoid controversies and had prepared all the groundwork. However, Congress lost the 1996 elections and his project was shelved.

PVRK was versatile in many languages and wrote articles in Tamil and Kannada also.

His death was condoled by Governor ESL Narasimhan, AP CM Chandrababu, Telangana CM K Chadrasekhar Rao and YCP president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

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