MUMBAI: The Siddhivinayak temple is one of the most visited temples in Mumbai and sees lakhs of devotees every month. While, traditionally donations have been in the form of cash and gold among other things, now the temple trust will allow devotees to donate in the form of equity shares too.
The temple trust has tied up with SBICAP Securities and opened a demat account, which will enable its devotees to offer shares of companies too, as donations.
“Devotees can now donate to the temple in the form of shares through this facility. This will help in raising the temple’s revenue, which will be used for social cause,” said Narendra Rane, chairman, Shree Siddhivinayak Ganapati Temple Trust.
One can donate stocks of listed companies electronically via a demat account. This initiative will be later extended to other financial instruments, including mutual funds, bonds and gold exchange traded funds.
“We are positioning this as a new initiative to devotees,” said Mani Palvesan, MD of SBICAP Securities.
The temple had earlier received shares in donation, but some of them couldn’t be converted to cash due to signature verification issues, Palvesan added.
Now, a devotee needs to only electronically transfer the shares he/she wishes to donate to the temple’s demat account, which will be then sold by the broker for cash and used by the temple trust for its various initiatives.
{{/usCountry}}Now, a devotee needs to only electronically transfer the shares he/she wishes to donate to the temple’s demat account, which will be then sold by the broker for cash and used by the temple trust for its various initiatives.
{{/usCountry}}The Siddhivinayak temple already gets donations of around ₹75 crore in cash and kind each year. It has deposited 44 kg of gold under the government’s gold monetisation scheme launched in November last year.
Last year, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, the managing body of Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati had opened a demat account to accept donations in the form of shares.