MUMBAI: The Shirdi Sai Sansthan Trust has planned events around the globe to mark the centenary year of the death of spiritual leader Sai Baba, starting on Dussehra (September 30). Music maestro A R Rahman will be performing at Shirdi, said trust chief Suresh Haware.
Rahman’s performance would be one among many cultural programmes, he said, not specifying a date.
Religious programmes and medical camps, including distribution of Jaipur foots for the disabled would be held to mark the centenary year of Sai Baba’s death. Apart from this, coordinated programmes will be held across the 8,500 Sai Baba temples in the world, of which 450 are located in 47 countries, said Haware.
The trust has also planned to produce TV serials and conduct world tours to bring more people into the fold, starting with a Sai Paduka programme in Goa on October 14 and 15.
Anticipating the rush of devotees at Shirdi, arrangements have been made for flights to operate from Shirdi airport by September-end and to enhance lodging capacity at the small town.
“The trust has facilities that can accommodate 20,000 devotees and private operators in Shirdi can house 30,000 more. For the centenary year, we plan to develop temporary facilities for 50,000 more devotees,” Haware said.
Ensuring that the path to Sai Baba darshan is smooth and not filled with the proverbial sticks and stones, the trust will be spending Rs 100 crore to develop a three-storied air-conditioned waiting complex for devotees.
“The work on the complex will be completed in about eight months’ time. It would be at some distance from the main temple complex and hence would have proper parking facilities and spacious halls with a capacity to accommodate 5,000 devotees. The total complex would able to hold 30,000 devotees at any given time,” Haware added.
What’s more, devotees will no longer have to wait in queues for seven to eight hours. The trust has gone the way of the government by implementing a biometric mechanism for devotee registration. “Now, upon registration, which is free and takes hardly about a minute, they get a time slot for ‘darshan’,” says Haware.
The super-rich of course get the further luxury of purchasing ‘VIP darshan’ by adding Rs 25 crore more into the trust’s coffers in a single year. The trust earns Rs 1 crore by way of donations everyday and another Rs 1 crore comes to the trust by way of income from the trust’s activities. With this money, it supports over 5.5 lakh patients annually through its two hospitals with capacity of 550 beds, apart from providing other services to society and its leaders.