The Alipiri foot route leading to the sacred hill town of Lord Venkateswara is all set to acquire a new look with the TTD resolving to take up restoration and beautification works along the trekking route.
Reliance Industries has expressed its willingness to shoulder the entire cost of the project.
The footpath, which commences at Alipiri in Tirupati, is 9-km long and has over 3,550 steps and is preferred by a majority of the trekking pilgrims.
Over 30,000 pilgrims frequent the pathway on an average every day. Now it is closed for two months to lay the new rooftop.
It was around the late seventies and early eighties that the renovation works for the last time were undertaken on the footpath.
An overhead roof will be constructed all along the pathway to protect the devotees from the extreme seasonal climatic conditions besides undertaking the refurbishment of the granite steps at a cost of around Rs 30 crore.
The footpath is also dotted with several ancient structures like Padala mandapam, Pedda gopuram, Gali gopuram, temples of Lord Lakshmi Narayana Swamy, Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy and Thova Bhasyakarlu besides the towering statue of Lord Hanuman.
