By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Apr. 23: The income of many temples, which used to earn thousands of rupees, has fallen to zero, thanks to the lockdown that has prevented the devotees and tourists from visiting the religious shrines.
The daily income of the Pashupatinath Temple has now fallen to zero even though it has the reputation of highest earning temple of the nation.
The Pashupatinath Temple area, which used to remain overcrowded all days has now virtually turned into an empty heritage. Only the monkeys, pigeons, dogs, saints and a few mourners, who come to Aryaghat to cremate the bodies of their family members, are the visitors to the holy site these days.
The main temple of Pashupatinath has been closed for the first time in history. It has remained closed since the second week of lockdown.
The continuous lockdown has directly affected the daily income of the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT).
Dr Milan Kumar Thapa, treasurer of the PADT, informed that the trust had been bearing losses of around Rs 1 million a day due to the lockdown.
The PADT usually used to collect Rs 100,000 to Rs 250,000 from the offerings to Lord Shiva from the devotees a day. Sometimes, the amount used to reach as high as Rs 500,000 to Rs 700,000.
Altogether around Rs 4.5 million of money used to be collected from the offerings in a month.
From the tourist entrance fees, it used to collect over Rs 10 million in a month. The daily collection from it amounted to Rs 300,000 to Rs 400,000.
The monthly collection from special puja was around Rs 7 million. It used to go further up in special month, he said.
He further said that the monthly collection from Aryaghat, mourning house (Kiriya Putri Ghar) and electric cremation used to be around Rs 2 million to Rs 2.5 million.
Of late, the Trust has stopped the service of mourning house owing to the fear of spread of the virus, said Thapa. “We have managed free cremation service of 3 to 4 bodies at the electric cremation building for economically weak people. The number of free cremation has of late increased,” he said.
The number of bodies has also decreased with the enforcement of lockdown in both cremation sites at Aryaghat and electric cremation building. It has been cremating 4 to 5 bodies at electric cremation building and around 8 to 10 at Aryaghat on daily basis.