Sai Mahabhakta Late Shri.Gumidelli Lakshminarayana was a resident of Hyderabad. Sai Baba asked him during his visit to Shirdi to build a Lakshminarayana Mandir in Hyderabad. The interesting story is as follows:

In the year 1916, Gummidelli Lakshminarayana visited Shirdi along with a friend. At Shirdi they went as often as they could to sit in Baba’s presence. On one occasion Baba looked directly at Lakshminarayana and said, "You have to build a Lakshminarayana Temple soon". Lakshminaraya was an ordinary merchant and he was not affluent and hence he asked Baba what the approximate cost of the Temple could be. Baba replied, “6 lakhs”. Lakshminarayana was shocked to hear this as he did not have that much money to built. So he thought that Baba was joking.

Within 2 years, i.e., in the year 1918, his own business flourished well and he became the owner of many lakhs and could easily spare 6 lakhs. At that time Baba had attained Mahasamadhi, but Lakshminarayana carried out Baba’s command and constructed the Lakshmi Narayana Temple in Hyderabad. To his surprise it cost him exactly 6 lakhs inclusive of the permanent funds.

The temple is situated at Somasundaram Street where Sri Lakshminarayana Swamy Devastanam stands tall on the left of this small and narrow street, which leads to Manju Theatre. 

The presiding deity is Sri Lakshminarayana with his consort Goddess Lakshmi Devi. Shri.Gumidelli Srinivas, the fourth generation of Late Shri.Gumidelli Lakshminarayana is the Chairman of the Temple Trust and is taking care of the daily temple activities.

Shri.Gumidelli Srinivas says "We were then living in Bombay and my great grandfather used to worship at the Sri Lakshminarayana Swamy temple there. We used to live near there somewhere," through he is not very sure about the location.

Gumidelli family used to deal with diamonds, gold and yarn and used to visit Secunderabad often. Gumidelli Lakshminarayana was the only distributor in the country for the Abercrombie paints in those days. During his life time, Gumidelli Lakshminaraya donated certain movable and immovable properties like jewellery, houses and shops to meet the day-to-day needs such as nitya puja, nitya dhoopadeepa naivedyams, nitya alankarana of the temple. "It became a self-sustaining temple then," says Srinivas. 

Gumidelli Lakshminarayana died a year after he built the temple. The family decided that the eldest son of the family will take care of the temple and thus came Srinivas’ grandfather, Ananthapadmanabha Swamy, to the temple. 

(Source: Sai Sudha Magazine 1943. Photo Courtesy: Shri.Jignesh C.Rajput, Surat & Shri.Pranav, Telangana)