Kerala temples to go digital

With the world going digital, temples are also going in for a makeover. Taking a lead in this direction are temples in Kerala which will enable devotees to use GPay or PhonePe to make offerings to the place of worship.

Now major temples which come under the jurisdiction of Travancore Devaswom Board will offer e-payment options for kanikka or money offered to the lord and vazhipadu or amount given for worshipping by bursting crackers. For this purpose, the Board is zeroing on a banking partner.

Sharing details about this project, K. Ananthagopan, president of TDB said that plans are afoot to introduce modern payment options in all the major temples under the board. There are 26 temples in the major category and that includes the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple.

Major temples are those in which the number of devotees coming for praying is high. Other major temples include Vaikom Mahadeva Temple, Thiruvallam Sree Parasurama Swami Temple,  Ettumanoor Mahadeva Temple, and Malayalappuzha Temple.

At present, the Sabarimala temple is the only one which has the facility for making payments by UPI and other digital options. Besides this at Vaikom Mahadeva temple, the Federal Bank has been assigned to run a pilot digital payment project.

The Board has invited other commercial banks for the digital project.

Apart from this the Board is also working to offer more facilities to the devotees. Earlier it had directed the staff to be courteous and cordial to the devotees and conduct the poojas as per the traditions.

Besides this, non-temple revenue options are being explored by the Board. Based on the feasibility studies, a fuel pump will be opened in Thiruvananthapuram and also an LPG outlet enroute to Sabarimala temple.