Balapur Ganesh laddu fetches a whopping Rs.14.65 lakh

Kandadi Skylab Reddy, who bagged the famed Balapur Ganesh laddu for a whopping Rs 14.65 lakh in auction on Thursday, has a peculiarity of name.His parents proudly named him Skylab Reddy when he was born in 1979 when space station Skylab-I crashed on the Earth on July 11, 1979 scattering debris across the southern Indian Ocean and sparsely-populated western Australia.

Asked about having a strange name, he said  his parents named him Skylab Reddy as Skylab crash became an unforgettable incident across the entire world at that time. “I am



proud to be tagged with Skylab by my parents,” he said after offering prayers at a temple at Balapur soon after he bought the Balapur Ganesh laddu. 

For the first time in the history, the  auctioned price of the prestigious Balapur laddu weighing 21-kg has crossed the Rs 14-lakh mark this year, Rs 4.33 lakh higher than in last year's auction.

The auction started at 9.30 am and the process was wrapped up in about half an hour. The bidding started with a minimum bid amount of Rs 1,116 and went up to Rs 14.65 lakh.