After the Supreme Court verdict allowed women of all age groups to enter the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, there has been a lot of controversies making headlines every day. Yesterday, the High Court of Kerala declared that the Commissioner of the Travancore and Cochin Devaswom Boards can only be a Hindu. The latest being the toll on donations that the temple used to receive in the 41-day long pilgrimage season.
The new development that has unfolded in Sabarimala is surely going to toughen things for the state government. The ongoing political tussle has resulted in reduced pilgrim footfall on the hill shrine and has hit the trade and business activities at large. Kerala which is reconstructing itself after being hit by the floods this year, is finding it difficult to restore itself.
In conversation with Financial Express state finance minister TM Thomas Isaac said, “Fall in hundi income of temples alone would be a huge financial burden for Kerala government, in a situation when the state’s infrastructural has taken a big hit during August’s monsoon deluge.” In addition to this, the minister also said that there is inflow of revenues via parking fees, sale of prasadam offerings, transport business and commercial activities that facilitate amenities around the temple etc. that would heavily suffer. All of this will increase the burden on the treasure of state government and hamper the state’s post-flood rebuild plan.
Dissatisfied with Supreme Court decisions, people are protesting in large numbers while communist government in Kerala is hell bent on destroying the sanctity of the shrine. People totally seem to be miffed by government’s approach. Due to dissatisfaction, people have almost stopped visiting the temple which further is set to exacerbate things for the State government. Still, there are a few people who visit the temple, but the ones visiting are not willing to donate, keeping in mind the autocratic rule by the state government.
Former chief of Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) M Rajgopalan Nair on this issue said, “A rough estimate of the revenue-contributing pilgrims to Sabarimala shrine in the 41-day season include 26% from Andhra Pradesh, 24% to 25% from Tamil Nadu, 24 to 25% from Kerala, 20% from Karnataka and 5% from rest of the country and abroad.”
TDB in total runs 1,253 temples, Sabarimala sees approximately 5 crore pilgrims during the 41-day season which amounts to Rs. 300 crores of funds. Half of the operational expenses of the Board is met by the funds raised by Sabarimala only.
According to reports, hundi collection in the state has reached to a new low with just Rs. 1.75 lakh being collected in a single day. Earlier, this amount used to be around Rs. 5 lakh on any given day during the pilgrimage season. The Kerala government should take this new development arising in the Sabarimala seriously. It further needs to work judiciously in order to bring stability in the state and reconstruct the flood-hit state.