Gold collections drop in Tirupati, Padmanabhaswamy,Guruvayur

Bangalore, Feb 2: Gold collections at Tirupati, Guruvayur, Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala, and Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai have come down in the past six months owing to 11% price rise of the yellow metal.

"Gold collections have dropped 10% over the last six months possibly due to surging gold prices," said Bhaskara Reddy, Financial Advisor and Chief Accounts Officer of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam Trust, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.

Tirupati receives 80-100 kg of gold, mostly in the form of bars, coins and ornaments, while it receives 100-120 kg of silver as offerings every month, said a report in the Economic Times.

Ashish Mundhra, Director, Mundhra Bullions said that the reason for the drop in gold collection was due to economic slowdown, liquidity problem and stock market crash.

"In earlier days, people who had gold were considered as more powerful in society," he said.

"But as society underwent changes, cash power gained importance. Gold gradually turned out to be a safe investment bet and an instrument of security. Perhaps that is the reason why gold offerings to temples have gone down," he said.

Siddhivinayak Temple's collection of gold has come down and it is receiving 25% more in cash.

"Even cash offerings had gone down," says Mohana Bhass, Chief Finance and Accounts Officer of Guruvayur Devaswom attributing the reason being the Mullaperiyar issue that has created a rift between the neighbouring states Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

"We are not even receiving gold from the royal family of Travancore, which is the custodian of the temple," says VK Harikumar, Chief Executive of the Padmanabha temple after the gold collection dropped.

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