Sri Durga Malleswara Swamyvarla Devasthanam has netted more than ₹6 crore during the recently concluded 10-day Dasara festival. The temple received about ₹4 crore through darshan and rituals tickets and prasadam sales. Besides, the Kanaka Durga temple received more than ₹2.4 crore as cash receipts from the devotees. The temple also received more than 485 grams of gold and silver ornaments weighing 12.010 kgs.
As there is a marginal increase in devotees preferring ₹300 ticket, the temple received ₹97.98 lakh this year. Last year, 28,591 people bought ₹300 tickets and it increased to 32,662 devotees this year. The devasthanam authorities scrapped the most sought after ₹20 ticket. The authorities introduced ₹100 ticket in its place. As many as 65,094 people bought the ₹100 ticket this year which amounted to ₹65.09 lakh.
A total of 15.25 lakh people thronged the temple during the Dasara festival. This turn out includes Bhavani rush as they began visiting temple even before the Saraswati alanakaram on the Moola nakshtram day. Sale of laddu prasadam, however, nosedived to 16.14 lakhs compared to 16.17 lakh last year.
The sale of pulihora prasdam scaled up to 5.19 lakh packets from 4.07 lakh packets last year.
Though the temple authorities claim that they made elaborate arrangements for anna prasadam, not even one-eighth of devotees had it. Only 1.95 lakh devotees availed themselves of the facility during 10-day festival though the rush was 15.25 lakh. Last year, close to 2.40 lakh devotees had had anna prasadam during the festival.
The dip in the laddu sales was due to the restrictions imposed by the temple authorities. Only three laddus were given to Bhavani devotees.
