SAMBALPUR: Even as the redevelopment of Samaleswari temple under the SAMALEI project has restored its glory to some extent, the shrine trust is now grappling with a financial burden caused by a significant rise in electricity bills and ways to repay it.
The temple had substantial power bills pending much before the first phase of SAMALEI project was inaugurated. After its inauguration on January 27 this year, the temple has been receiving electricity bills ranging from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh since March. The increase in utility costs has exacerbated the financial woes of the temple, which heavily relies on donations from devotees to cover its operational expenses.
Donations received by the temple, while consistent, are insufficient to meet all the expenses, including the electricity bills. A temple official informed around Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh is received as donations by the shrine every month and the amount is spent on priests’ salaries, conduct of rituals, prasad and regular maintenance. The authorities are now in a fix while trying to balance the expenses. The temple trust board is exploring various avenues to manage the expenses.
Sources informed after the COVID-19 outbreak, the temple had stopped receiving electricity bills. Eventually, when the redevelopment project started, it came to the fore that the pending bills had gone up to more than Rs 20 lakh.
The issue persisted for a long time but later with the intervention of the district administration, the trust board paid more than one-fourth of the pending amount, which was around Rs 6 lakh, ahead of the inauguration of the first phase of the SAMALEI project. Now with the fresh electricity bills, it is back to square one with the temple’s pending power bills going up to over Rs 20 lakh.
Temple Trust Board president, Sanjay Babu said, “We are implementing measures to reduce electricity consumption. While the donation money is insufficient to pay the power bills, we cannot use the accumulated savings of the temple. We had discussed the matter with the previous government but things could not proceed due to the elections.
We would bring the matter to the notice of the new government soon.” He said the temple can avail electricity from a 120 KW solar project but it is yet to be on-grided. “Once it is done, we hope to cut down on power bills. We had held discussions in this regard with Tata Power few months back and we will follow it up soon.”