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Audits Expose Mismanagement of Guruvayur Temple's Vast Wealth
21 Oct
Summary
- Audits reveal temple's valuables, including gold, silver, and ivory, vulnerable to misuse
- Unexplained weight loss and substitution of items in "double-lock register"
- Disappearance of 17 sacks of lucky seeds offered by devotees
In the past few years, audits of the Guruvayur Devaswom, which manages the Sri Krishna temple in Kerala, have exposed significant vulnerabilities in the handling of the shrine's valuable assets. The findings, covering the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years, paint a concerning picture of the temple's management systems.
At the heart of the issue is the mishandling of elephant tusks and ivory at the Guruvayur Devaswom's Punnathur Kotta sanctuary. The audits reveal that during 2019, over 500 kg of ivory were either removed or remained in the devaswom's possession without proper documentation or handover to the forest department as required by law. This raises the possibility that large quantities of ivory may have gone unaccounted for.
Inside the temple, the audits also uncovered shocking discrepancies in the "double-lock register," which tracks the gold and silver articles used for daily rituals. Items returned after use often showed unexplained weight loss, and in some cases, valuable items were replaced with less valuable ones, without any inquiry or accountability action.
The audits also recorded the disappearance of 17 sacks of manjadikuru (red lucky seeds) offered by devotees. These sacks, which were auctioned off, were later found to have been removed by health department workers, with no clear records of their whereabouts.
Despite the Guruvayur Devaswom Act and Rules mandating annual physical verification of all valuables, the auditors noted that no such verification has been carried out for more than four decades, further exacerbating the lack of oversight and control.
The recurring nature of these lapses, spanning consecutive years, suggests that the problem is structural rather than isolated. The current Guruvayur Devaswom board has acknowledged the issues and claimed to have tightened internal controls, but the scale of the mismanagement revealed by the audits raises serious concerns about the temple's ability to safeguard its vast wealth and treasures.
