Hyderabad, June 17: One Tirupati, 108 darshans.

A visit to the abode of Lord Balaji in the Andhra town could be akin to a cross-country temple odyssey thanks to a theme park that will house replicas of 108 prominent temples from across the country.

That will mean devotees can top their visits to Tirumala — the hill town near Tirupati where the main shrine is located — with darshans of the Kashi Vishwanath, Madurai Meenakshi and Kanchi Kamakshi shrines as well as the Ram temple of Ayodhya.

“We want the pilgrims to get a complete devotional experience of other pilgrimage centres after they have savoured the divine environment at the Tirumala temple,” said the spokesperson for the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, the board that runs the country’s richest shrine.

The Mythological Theme Park will come up on 38 acres in a village near Alipiri, at the foot of the Tirumala hills, at a cost of Rs 355 crore. It will be a private-public partnership project between the state tourism department and Hyderabad’s Vaishnavi Infra Ventures and Resorts.

The venture will be based on a build-operate-transfer model, which means the private firm will run it for a few years before transferring it to the government.

“We plan to build replicas of all prominent temples in the country, replete with minute details in terms of their size and grandeur,” said T. Sagar, director of Vaishnavi Infra Ventures.

The builders have hired artists and sculptors from the Devasthanam and experts from the Archaeological Survey of India. The team plans to get material, such as soil, bricks and wood, from some the 108 pilgrimage centres to lend the park a degree of authenticity.

The project is part of a larger plan to turn the Tirumala-Tirupati temple zone into a “pilgrimage capital of India” and a window to the country’s religiosity.

The project will earn the promoters — the private firm in the initial years and the state government later — rich dividends not only through entry tickets but also in the form of rent from resorts, food courts and souvenir shops that are likely to come up under franchise arrangements.

The builder has begun constructing some resorts and hotels even before work has started on the theme park. State tourism secretary Chandana Khan has cleared the 38-acre plot for the project, government sources said.