Poojas on plastic in Meenakshi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 August 2004, 16:49 GMT]
Devotees of the Meenakshi Sundareswar temple in Madurai, 500 km south of Chennai, can now swipe the card to pay for their poojas and donate for temple charities, IANS reported this week.

Continuing the trend of temples in Tamil Nadu turning to modern technology, the Meenakshi temple, which has a large number of affluent devotees, began accepting plastic currency from Monday, the Indian news agency reported.

The first devotee to use the facility was a businessman, who donated Rs.2,500 to the temple.

The electronic facility will also help the devotees pay for participating in the rite of pulling the deities' golden chariot.

Credit cards will also be accepted for donations to the temple-sponsored free marriage scheme in which the poor get married in groups at a common function arranged by the temple.

The temple has roped in the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) to set up a credit card validation facility on the premises.

Despite being steeped in traditions, Tamil Nadu’s temples of the state have been ahead of their counterparts in other states in adopting technology. The first temple to set up a website and accept online bookings for poojas was the Sri Ranganathan Temple of Sri Rangam.