Sri Durga Malleswara Swamyvarla Devasthanam owns more than 100kg gold and nearly one and half tons silver.
Sri Durga Malleswara Swamyvarla Devasthanam has gold ornaments and jewellery weighing 55 kg. In addition it has gold reserves with the State Bank of India (SBI). With a wish to convert this “idle” gold into a perennial source of income coupled with security reasons, the temple deposited gold weighing 55.382 kg with the SBI under Gold Bond Scheme, source say.
The temple authorities say that their efforts in converting “dead assets” has started yielding results. The temple is receiving an interest of Rs. 5 lakh on the gold deposited with the bank, they say.
The temple also received silver ornaments etc weighing 1,476 kg. The temple authorities sometime ago converted the gold ornaments presented by the devotees into pure gold, 24 carat. The ornaments that have either broken, less in quality wise, or cannot be used regularly were taken to Mumbai. The purity of those ornaments ranged between 18 carat to 22 carat, sources say.
The devotees have been presenting various gifts to the goddess. Some time ago, city based industrialists Kankanala Ramesh and Koganti Satyam presented a golden veena worth about Rs. 39 lakh to the temple. About 2 kg of gold was used in the making of the Veena. The veena is being used for Saraswati Alankaram on Moola Nakshatram during Dasara.
The Kanaka Durga temple hundi collections touched new heights and surpassed its own records. The temple received an income of Rs. 9.94 crore during first half of 2013. This apart, the temple received 3.350 kg of gold and 32 kg silver. Gold and silver offerings in 2005-06 were 9.48 kg and 165.153 kg, respectively. The hundi collections crossed Rs.1-crore mark three times in 2013.
