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.

Amid controversy over the use of animal fat in ghee at the Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh, the Karnataka government on Friday issued a directive mandating the use of Nandini brand ghee in all 34,000 temples.

In the midst of a controversy over the usage of animal fat in Tirupati laddoo production, Indian dairy company Amul issued a statement clarifying that it never gave ghee (clarified butter) to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD).