Karnataka: Want information on temples? Try Muzarai app

Bengaluru: Do you want to know the special puja timings at various temples across the state,  their distance from your hometown and the type and cost of every puja  they offer? Thanks to the Muzarai department the information could soon be at your fingertips as it plans to come out with a mobile app covering all important temples of the state.

“The app is intended to help devotees and increase the revenue of the Muzarai maintained temples,”  Muzarai Minister, Rudrappa Lamani,  told DC. Noting that such an app had already been developed for the Tirupati Tirumala temple, Meenakshi temple in Madurai,  Siddi Vinayak temple in Mumbai and  Durga temple in Vishakapatnam,  he said in the absence of such an app there was  a dearth of information on temple in  Karnataka.

“People are going to Bengaluru One centres to book rooms and pujas well in advance in the temples. But now they will be able to do it using mobile phones by just downloading the new app,” he explained, revealing that two companies, one from Mysuru and another from Hyderabad,  had come forward to develop it. “The entire cost will be borne by the companies concerned. They will develop the app to provide information on around 200 important temples across the state, including the Chamundeshwari Temple, Kukke Subramanya, Kateel Durga Parameshwari, Kollur Mookambika, and Savadatti Yellamma. The details will include distance to the pilgrim centres from all districts, a variety of pujas, their timings, room availability, history of the shrine and more importantly, cost of each puja,” he added.  A government order on developing a new mobile app was released last week. Meanwhile, the minister said the government had permitted the muzarai department to use money collected by each temple from devotees on development of the smaller temples in their vicinity. Of the 33,000 muzrai temples, only a few made a good collection as the rest were barely visited due to lack of facilities, he revealed.