Money For A Good Cause

Money For A Good Cause

There is good news for people who worry needlessly about what happens to the money they so faithfully put into collection boxes at temples, gurdwaras and other places of worship. Huge amounts are recorded by those who categorise and segregate donations made at premier faith destinations like Vaishno Devi in Jammu and Kashmir, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Tirupati Balaji Mandir in Andhra Pradesh, at Maharashtra’s Shirdi Sai Baba Temple, the Siddhi Vinayak Temple in Mumbai, the Kalkaji Mandir in Delhi, and the Guruvayur Temple in Kerala. The daily collections at such shrines are not to be sneezed at; they run into several crores worth of cash and kind a day that include jewellery, ornaments for the deity and even gold coins, biscuits and bars.

Charity Work
Some of the precious decorative items are used to adorn the deities. A part of the collection goes in maintaining the temple, and in providing facilities for the endless streams of pilgrims, for langar and kitchens to feed the devotees, and for running charitable and institutionalised schools and colleges, dispensaries and hospitals managed by trusts.


Money Invested In Banks
Earlier, cash, gold, silver and gifts donated by devotees to temples in Tamil Nadu were unceremoniously packed in cloth bags and piled up in a safety locker or placed in the corner of a room. Not any more. Many big temples are now managed by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE)
Board, and these are now depositing gold, mostly as ornaments in banks not only to keep them safe but also to earn interest.

Transparency In Dealings
Some temples own land and cash deposits in banks, donated over the years by devotees. However, with the public outcry at misuse of temple funds and properties, temples are beginning to display names of defaulters with their addresses and the outstanding amounts. These are put up on noticeboards for
public viewing.

Gold Donations Converted
Most of the gold donated to temples in the south is now handled by the State Bank of India (SBI) and the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), both public sector banks. “We collect ornaments from temples and melt them in the presence of temple trustees as well as officials from the government mint department and weigh them. The officials give a certificate listing the weight and this becomes the deposit certificate for temples,” says a senior SBI official in Chennai.

Gold Deposits
The Samayapuram Mariamman Temple has the biggest deposit with SBI - 200 kg of gold. The Murugan Temple in Palani has invested 78 kg with the bank, Tiruchendur 41 kg and Madurai Meenakshi 35 kg. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam alone has deposited nearly one tonne of gold with the IOB. That’s
1,000 kgs!

Interest Earned on Gold
The gold is stored with the banks as bars for a particular period. The banks pay interest either in cash or in gold. The bank loans the gold to jewellers for a fixed period of time at a specific rate of interest. Jewellers melt the gold, make jewellery and sell it for a profit. At the end of the deposit term, they return the original amount of gold - again as bars - with interest, to the banks. “The gold is loaned to jewellers at the prevailing market rate. The jewellers have to return it on the appointed date at that day’s market rate,” says an IOB official in Chennai.

Donations Made Easier
Banks are also offering facilities to aid wealthy devotees, who contribute large amounts in the temple precincts itself. SBI has a point-of-sale machine in the Palani temple so that devotees can deposit money through credit cards. Some banks allow devotees to donate through ATMs, and donations are now also coming in through netbanking. This service is now available for several temples, including the Siddhi Vinayak Temple and the Palani Temple.

Om Namah Shivay.