Thiruvananthapuram: As the annual pilgrimage to the Sabarimala temple in Kerala ends today, a senior official of the temple board said on Thursday that the temple has recorded a revenue of Rs 320 crore this year.
He informed that the above amount has been earned by January 14th. Earlier in 2018, the highest revenue was recorded at Rs 260 crore.
‘TDB’ manages Sabarimala temple
However, after 2 years of epidemic restrictions, the temple income has broken all-time records due to the influx of pilgrims this year, according to the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) statistics. ‘TDB’ manages the day-to-day operations of the temple.
TDB President K Ananthagopan said, both passenger arrivals and revenue have increased significantly. We are still counting coins. How much money has been earned will be clearly known after two days. On the day of Makar Sankranti, 2 lakh pilgrims climbed the mountain and came to the temple. We are grateful to the cooperation of various departments and passengers for making everything run smoothly.
Informative. Last week, TDB engaged more staff to count money as the counting machines were out of order. The revenue from the Sabarimala temple runs many smaller temples in the Travancore region and pays the members of the ‘TDB’.
“Aravana Payasam” (60% of the total income) comes from the sale of rice, jaggery, ghee and Gujarati black curd.