Donate money to temples via SMS

Bangalore, Jan 23 (UNI) Airtel, the country's leading mobile service, has come out with an innovative service 'Temple Offering' to provide a convenient way for customers to make donations to temples from anywhere via SMS.

SMS offerings could presently be made to four temples -- Mantralaya in Andhra Pradesh, Siddi Vinayak in Mumbai, Dharmasthala in Karnataka and Jalaram temple in Bangalore. The service would soon be extended to Tirupati, Shirdi Sai Baba, Vaishno Devi and Mahalakshmi temples, a company release here said today.

An Airtel customer who wishes to use this service should type the temple keyword, the amount he/she wished to donate and SMS ''temple code amount'' to 64655. Rs four would be charged for each such SMS and the donated amount would be deducted from the customers' pre-paid balance and for post-paid users debited in the bill, the release said.

Bharti Airtel Ltd Mobile Services CEO Deepak Mehrotra said ''Temple Offering is a service that uses technology to help our customers with their beliefs in a personal way using their mobile.'' UNI