Golden Temple shores up Amritsar economy

Apart from being the highest religious shrine for Sikhs, the Golden Temple sustains a segment of the economy of Amritsar, providing business to shopkeepers, transporters, and hotel owners, and employment to thousands of young people living in the city.

On average, 350,000-400,000 people visit the shrine every day. On occasions like Amavasya, Sakranth, Diwali, Vaisakhi, and Guruparv, the turnout increases considerably.

According to temple officials, around 1-1.5 million people visit the temple on these days. Of these, international tourists number 1,500-1,600 and NRIs 3,000.

The soup kitchen at the temple complex feed over 45,000 devotees every day, according to temple officials.

The people who benefit are those plying autoricksaws or rickshaws.

But it is the shops dealing in toys, kirpans, papad, wadiyans, and shawls and blankets, and roadside dhabas that witness considerable sales. As compared with the rest of the city, shops around the Golden Temple witness good sales.

There are about 3,000 shops stretched along the circumference of the temple. Satnam Singh, who owns the Sardar Kirpan Showroom, a shop on the road in front of the Golden Temple, said, "On average, our sales figure touch Rs 5000-5500 per day. All days are mostly alike and we never face any slump in business, be it the scorching summer time or the frosty winters.

Echoing similar sentiments, Kuldeep Singh, a papad shop owner said, "As the Amritsar papad is famous throughout the country, people coming from different parts of the world never forget to buy papad. So our average daily revenue comes to about Rs. 4200.

Expressing his views, one of the guest-house owners said, "In spite of having rooms for staying purposes within the temple premises for visitors, our occupancy rates throughout the season remain at around 95 per cent."