Temples insist on pocketless clothing for donation counting staff after Ram temple theft

Hamirpur/Palanpur, Jul 13 (PTI) The alleged theft of offerings at the Ram temple in Ayodhya has prompted the management of other prominent temples to bring in stricter rules for the counting process, including specific dress code requiring the staff to wear pocketless clothing. The Baba Balak Nath Temple in Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur and Gujarat's famous Ambaji temple are among the temples that have introduced such rules. The Karnataka government also has issued an SOP aimed at ensuring security, transparency and accountability of donations at state-run temples. According to the Balak Nath Temple trust, cash offerings are already counted under a prescribed procedure in the presence of authorised staff and officials and under CCTV surveillance. The mandatory use of pocketless clothing has now been added as another safeguard to ensure transparency, honesty and accountability in the counting process. The decision was implemented on the instructions of Hamirpur Deputy Commissioner and Sidh Baba Balak Nath Temple Trust Chairperson Gandharva Rathore. The new dress code requires all staff involved in counting offerings to wear garments without pockets, a temple trust spokesperson said Rathore said the proposal had been under consideration for a long time and has now been brought into effect from Monday. The Baba Balak Nath Temple at Deotsidh, one of the major temples in the state controlled by the Himachal Pradesh government under the HP Endowment Temples Act, receives nearly 70 to 80 lakh pilgrims annually. The Ambaji temple has implemented a strict standard operating procedure for counting donations, featuring live public telecasts and multiple security checks to boost transparency, months after a theft attempt, officials said on Monday. Under the revised SOP, the entire counting process will be monitored by more than 20 CCTV cameras, and the footage will be preserved for six months. All employees involved in counting donations will undergo frisking with metal detectors in the presence of police before entering the counting room. They will also not be allowed to wear clothes with large pockets during the exercise, he said. The move has come after an old CCTV footage of an outsourced employee attempting to steal Rs 1 lakh from the cash room of the shrine in Banaskantha district two months ago went viral online. The new measures were introduced to make the donation-counting process more robust and transparent, said Mihir Patel, Banaskantha collector and the managing trustee of the Shri Arasuri Ambaji Mata Devsthan Trust. "The three employees were dismissed from service with immediate effect back then. Following that, a new SOP has been announced to strengthen the donation counting process," Patel told reporters here. The SOP issued by the Karnataka government make it mandatory to install CCTV or web cameras, promotes digital payment systems through QR codes for donations, and prescribes several other measures. The Standard Operating Procedures were issued days after Chief Minister D K Shivakumar directed officials to install CCTV cameras in all major temples associated with the Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments (Muzrai) Department across the state, following allegations of embezzlement of donations received at the Ram temple in Ayodhya. "It has come to the notice of the authorities that incidents of theft from temple donation boxes (hundis) have been reported in various states across the country and have been widely covered in different media," the government circular said. "Further, cases of theft and misuse of cash and valuables during the counting of hundi collections and maintenance of accounts in temples under the jurisdiction of the Department of Religious Endowments in the State have also been observed," it said. PTI BPL/PJT PD KSU RT