The regulation in sale of Aravana to three tins (250 ml each) a pilgrim continued at Sabarimala for the second day on Sunday.
The shortage has left many a pilgrim from far-off places unhappy as they used to purchase large quantity of the prasadam to be distributed among friends and relatives on their return.
K.R. Jyotilal, Principal Secretary to devaswom, who is also the Sabarimala Chief Co-ordinator, told The Hindu that the TDB had regulated the Aravana sales to three tins a pilgrim from Saturday due to its short supply of the prasadom. Mr. Jyotilal said the Aravana production was stopped for six days earlier, owing to short supply of certain raw materials, reducing the fairly good buffer stock maintained by the devaswom to just 1.69 lakh tins by Friday evening. The devaswom had a buffer stock of 23 lakh tins of Aravana at the beginning of the pilgrim season.
Moisture content
Mr. Jyotilal said the duration of Aravana production had gone up by 30 minutes on every ‘koottu’ with the State Food Safety Department’s recommendation that the moisture content in the prasadam be maintained to a maximum of 10 per cent. Devaswom officials said that maintaining 10 per cent moisture content in Aravana required more time for drying and cooling, ultimately affecting the production.
Mr. Jyotilal said experts at the Council for Food Research and Development at Konni were of the opinion that the moisture content of Aravana, which had a sugar content of 60 per cent and above, could even go up to 15 per cent. He said the matter was taken up with the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, and a final decision would be taken after receiving technical advice from there.
Mr. Jyotilal said the production of Aravana at Sabarimala on Saturday was 2.29 lakh tins. He said the TDB should install one more Aravana unit at Sabarimala before the next pilgrim season.
Heavy rush
The Sabarimala Sanidhanam witnessed heavy rush on Sunday, raising the demand for Aravana. The average demand for Aravana at Sabarimala during rush days used to be 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh a day. -TheHindu