Divine blessings get a thumb's up

A conference of temple administrators recommends new facilities for devotees, and Siddhivinayak creates pre-booked darshan slots.

You want to visit your favorite deity, Siddhivinayak, on a Tuesday without missing out on the rest of your workday "" a wish that even Siddhivinayak himself isn't able to grant on account of the long queues of people waiting for darshan?

But lesser mortals like the trustees of the Siddhivinayak temple have come up with a unique solution which, put simply, allows you to keep your appointment with the Lord.

For getting an appointment, you just have to visit the temple in advance to have your thumb impression recorded on computer. So that when you return, your thumb impression, quickly matched, results in all barricades being flung open to allow you your darshan.

A temple trustee, Kishore Joshi, elaborates: "We have divided the time into one-hour slots and you can come to the temple and pick up your choice slot for any Tuesday, or all the Tuesdays during the year. Walk in at the appointed time to avoid the serpentine queues" "" queues that, it must be stated, can take hours.

"However, in an hour we would allow only 500 devotees inside the temple, apart from those devotees waiting in the queue. And if any particular one-hour slot of your choice is full, then you have a choice of booking yourself in another one-hour slot on the same day, or on the following Tuesday," Joshi clarifies.

The trial runs for the new system developed by Biotronics began last Tuesday, and the system will soon be operational. Joshi says the use of technology in crowd management at Siddhivinayak temple was inspired by a similar experiment started at the Tirumala-Tirupati shrine in Andhra Pradesh.

"This provoked us into thinking how popular shrines like Siddhivinayak, the Sai Baba Temple at Shirdi, Tirupati and Vaishnodevi can share their experiences in the management of men, material, crowd and finances, learn from each other's experiences, and try to offer better darshan to the crores of devotees who visit," says Vijaya Patil, treasurer.

The experiment was mooted at a two-day international temple conference of temples hosted by Siddhivinayak temple and attended by the trustees, administrators and members of the managing committees of 28 popular temples from India and Nepal.

"We aim at forming a federation of temples and coming out with a temple charter for the better management of temples," according to Patil.

The conference also aimed at creating awareness among temple authorities regarding the safety of devotees in case of terrorist attack, fire or other manmade or natural calamities.

It sought to resolve issues of restoration and preservation of temples, creating more facilities for devotees (such as devotee lodges) as well as creating online and offline bookings for aartis, poojas, prasad etcetera, and the coordination of charitable activities.