Pilgrim-flow to Kamakhya

With the annual Ambubachi Mela taking off at the Kamakhya Temple in the heart of Guwahati city late Saturday night, the Nilachal Hills housing the world’s most revered shakti-peeth is agog with activities. Several lakh devotees and pilgrims from all over the country as also from a few neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have already converged in and around the temple complex, with the government making temporary arrangements for their stay and food. While the Kamakhya Temple remains closed for four days coinciding the annual menstrual cycle of the Mother Goddess, the devotees will get the opportunity to pay their obeisance to the Devi only when the sanctum sanctorum of the temple will reopen on Thursday morning. The Kamakhya Temple is one of the most important tourist destinations of Assam, and gets several thousand visitors every day. These range from VVIPs and other dignitaries to government and non-government officials to business-people to the normal pilgrim and devotee, all of whom strongly believe that a prayer to the Mother Goddess in the Kamakhya Temple will fulfil all their wishes. The government of Assam has been spending several crores of rupees every year for the upkeep of the temple complex, with the major chunk of the funds coming from the government of India. There are also a lot of corporate funds flowing to the Kamakhya Temple which have provided additional support to the maintenance and upkeep of the temple complex. Last but not the least, the pilgrims and visitors make a lot of offering in cash before the goddess in the main temple as also other gods and goddesses whose idols, statues and carving are found all over in and around the temple complex. What however is still not in the grip of the government is the exact account of the cash that flows to the temple from the pilgrims, because there is a tendency among a sizeable section of priests and pandas not to guide the pilgrim or devotee to the donation box but to extend their palm. Any person visiting the Kamakhya Temple can easily guess the amount of cash that is offered by devotees. While it is true that the priests and pandas too make a livelihood by guiding the pilgrims and devotees, the government and the temple authorities concerned should make an effort to ensure that while pilgrims pay a fee to the priest/panda, they also deposit the offerings to the Devi and other gods and goddesses in the donation box. In most other well-managed temples including Tirupati, Vaishno Devi and Siddhi Vinayak, there is strict monitoring of the deposit of cash, and the same is counted and deposited in the bank accounts of those temples. One must congratulate the present government for giving a massive facelift to the Kamakhya Temple. The temple complex has become a thousand times cleaner in comparison to what it used to be say 10-15 years ago. The tourism department, which has the highest stake in the temple, meanwhile can organize a livelihood programme for the educated youth by providing skill-based training on manufacturing of various items that pilgrims purchase from the stalls for offering to the Mother Goddess as also for carrying home as prasad and souvenir. At the moment, nearly 90 per cent of the various items that are on sale in the stalls in the Kamakhya Temple come from outside the state.