E-Paper
Sabarimala hill shrine logs ₹204 crore revenue
The revenue clocked at the Sabarimala hill shrine during the ongoing Mandala-Makaravilakku annual pilgrimage season till December 25 was ₹204.3 crore
The revenue clocked at the Sabarimala hill shrine during the ongoing Mandala-Makaravilakku annual pilgrimage season till December 25 was ₹204.3 crore, a senior official of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), which administers the temple, said on Tuesday.
Exactly ₹204,30,76,704 was received through different ways including the sale of temple offerings like aravana and appam and donations. The figure is expected to go up once the coins in the donation boxes are fully counted, said PS Prasanth, president of the TDB.
“Of the ₹204.3 crore, devotees gave ₹63.89 crore as ‘kanikka’ (offering), ₹96.32 crore was generated through sale of ‘aravana’ (a kind of pudding using red rice and jaggery) and ₹12.38 crore through sale of ‘appam’ (a round sweet snack). The coins donated by the devotees as part of ‘kanikka’ are still being counted and the figure is expected to go up,” Prasanth said.
The first phase of the pilgrimage season will culminate following the mandala pooja on December 27 with the temple doors closing at night. The hill shrine located within the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala will reopen its doors on December 30 for the Makaravilakku rituals. The main day of the Makaravilakku festival is January 15 and pilgrims would be able to offer prayers till January 20.
The TDB president said that over 3.1 million pilgrims offered prayers at the temple between Nov 17 and December 25 during the pilgrimage season, indicating high footfall, especially from the neighbouring states. Over 725,000 pilgrims were given free food as part of ‘annadanam’ of the TDB till December 25, he said.
In recent days, there were widespread complaints of mismanagement of crowds at the temple, lack of basic facilities and abrupt control over vehicles heading to the shrine, leading to protests at several places.
On Tuesday too, the second-last day of the Mandalam pilgrimage season, thousands thronged the areas around the hill shrine as the sacred jewellery to be adorned on the deity was carried into the sanctum sanctorum in the evening before the special ‘deeparadhana’ puja. State temple affairs minister K Radhakrishnan and top officials of the TDB were in attendance at the temple for the festivities.
