Secunderabad Ganesh temple first to go online in Telangana

HYDERABAD: Sri Ganesh Temple in Secunderabad will be achieving a rare distinction in a few weeks from now. It will become the first temple in Telangana to have online services to book tickets for daily pujas, special sevas and prasadams, among others.

At present, no temple in Telangana is offering online services for booking pujas as in the case of Tirumala temple. The Telangana government wants to adopt technology for the convenience of devotees thronging various temples across the state. Online services would be kicked off in Secunderabad Ganesh Temple as a pilot project and would be extended to Yadadri, Basar, Vemula-wada and Bhadrachalam in the coming months.

Secunderabad Ganesh temple, which is nearly two-centuries old, is regarded as one of the oldest and popular temples in the twin cities. Daily pujas like Nitya Kalyanam (performed at 11 am) and Ganapati Homam (performed at 8.20 am) are the most popular pujas with dozens of couples attending them. According to P.L. Nagesh, chairman of the temple committee, this temple did not receive much attention in the combined Andhra Pradesh state when all attention was focused on Kanipakam Ganesh Temple.

“Ganesh temple had come under the aegis of endowments department in 1968. Due to callous attitude of the previous governments, this temple was confined and frequented by devotees only from the twin cities. The annual revenue of the temple is '4 crore and it has the scope to grow big like Kanipakam Temple and attract more devotees from across the state,” he said.

Mula virat Ganesh Idol was found in 1824 by the Madras Regiment sepoys while digging a well for potable water. With great devotion, the sepoys consecrated the idol and installed it in an architecturally marvellous temple, built according to the Agama Sastra. The temple committee and authorities had drawn big plans to make it one of the largest Ganesh temples in Telangana and are receiving support from the endowments department.

Mr Nagesh said that they are in touch with the endowment department and the state IT department for support to operate the website. 

“This facility would be of big help, especially to Telugu NRIs because many of them had shown interest to pay for yearly pujas like saswatha annadanam, saswatha homam and saswatha puja. Online facility would enable them to take a ticket and the temple archakas would perform puja in their names and gotram,” he said.

The proposal is with the endowments commissioner and formalities are likely to be cleared in the coming days, an official from the endowment department said.