BENGALURU: With digital payments becoming hugely popular, the Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions And Charitable Endowments Department has proposed to introduce a QR codebased payments system in some of the state-run temples for the benefit of devotees.
This is also expected to bring in more transparency. The QR code will be affixed where the regular donation box (hundi) is placed by the temple management. Devotees can choose to offer cash donations or make e-payments with their smartphones.
The Kerala government has introduced a similar system at the Sabarimala temple. Speaking to The New Indian Express, Endowment Department Commissioner Rohini Sindhuri said Karnataka had such plans much before Kerala. “There are many issues to be looked into before implementation. Unlike most of the temples in Karnataka, Sabarimala is visited by devotees in a particular season.
We need to check the feasibility of managing it the entire year,’’ she said. The department is also developing a unique Integrated Temple Management System (ITMS) to provide details of temples, including properties owned by them, route maps, sevas offered and rate charts among other details. “Under this, we are also planning to tie up with a bank, where all the money donated by devotees for a particular seva will directly go into that account. This will streamline and bring financial discipline,’’ Rohini said.
But official sources said some temples are reluctant to adopt this and prefer the regular system. According to Rohini, the temples can adopt a QR code system only if the ITMS system is completed. She, however, said they may introduce the system in a few temples, like Kukke Subrahmanya, to start with. In Karnataka, there are 34,559 temples under the Endowment Department.
Of these, 175 temples are Class-A (annual revenue above Rs 25 lakh), 163 are Class-B (Rs 5-25 lakh) and the remaining are Class-C temples (less than Rs 5 lakh per annum). Most of the revenue is through hundi donations from devotees and the various ‘sevas.’