THANJAVUR: The coconut water prasadam unit at Punnainallur Mariamman temple near Thanjavur, which was inaugurated amid much fanfare on September 27, 2021, is yet to prove beneficial to devotees as it reportedly functioned only on the unveiling day and has since been in disuse.
With an average of 5,000 coconuts being broken in the temple as offerings, the National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management, Thanjavur (NIFTEM-T) designed and fabricated the prasadam unit at a cost of Rs 7 lakh to offer the water from the fruit to devotees after purification. The unit, which was inaugurated by Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Prahlad Singh Patel, has an inbuilt cooling unit to serve the drink chilled.
NIFTEM officials pointed to how coconut water is rich in nutrients and how its discharge from the temple goes waste and caused bad odour as reasons for them to come up with the prasadam unit.
Though the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions on public entry might have been a reason for the unit not functioning for some time, there is no reason now for its disuse, say devotees. T Marimuthu, a devotee who visits the temple regularly, said the coconut water prasadam unit functioned only on the inaugural day.
"Initially the unit was located in the hall before the sanctum, but now it has been shifted to the circumambulatory hall of the temple," he added.
When contacted, Assistant Commissioner of HR&CE Department S Krishnan said told TNIE that some work is to be done to the unit and that NIFTEM was asked to carry out the same. "After the work is finished it would start functioning," he added.