New Gold, silver offerings at HP temples fall

SHIMLA: The Himachal government has passed a Bill in the just-concluded budget session of the Vidhan Sabha providing for disposal of gold and silver lying idle in the stock of the temple trusts of the state.
However, the Navaratras have revealed that offerings of the precious metal to the deities in the temples have been going down because of their high prices.
Offerings of gold and silver during the Navaratras in the shrines of Naina Devi, Chintpurni, Jawalaji, Chamunda and Brijeshwari this year were just small per cent of what they had been over the past years and was said to be the least in recent times.
Chintpurni recorded 175 gms of gold and six kilograms of silver as offerings, Naina Devi 229 gms of gold and 11 kgs of silver, Brijeshwari 60 gms of gold and 4.5 kgs of silver, Chamunda four gms of gold and 130 gms of silver and Jawalaji 20 gms of gold and two kgs of silver.
According to the office of the Kangra deputy commissioner, the Jawalaji temple trust as on May 31, 2009, had 29.375 kgs of gold and 226.825 kgs of silver, Brijeshwari Devi temple trust had 24.458 kgs of gold and 802.900 kgs of silver, the Chamunda temple trust has 8.082 kgs of gold and 78.172 kgs of silver, which indicated that offerings of gold and silver in the past have been much higher, taking into consideration that earlier gold and silver were also sold in the open market for meeting expenses and silver was also used for embedding the walls of the temples.
It was also of the view that stocking of the precious metals in such large quantities for long periods of time invited security risks, despite the fact that no such untoward incident had happened.
“Yet such a possibility could not be ruled out as there is no specific security arrangement for the stocks of gold and silver in the temples and the yield from the gold deposited with the banks under the gold deposit scheme is not compatible with the interest which will be earned if the metal is liquidated and the amount so obtained is deposited with a bank as long time investment”, it claimed.
However, chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said that it was with this problem of storing the gold and silver in the temple trusts that the government had passed the Himachal Pradesh Hindu Public Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments (Amendment) Bill, 2011, under which 50% of the gold could be converted into gold biscuits or coins and sold to the devotees and pilgrims at the prevailing market price.