Temples are seeking professionalism. Nope, they are not asking for prayers to be professional, but as sacred as ever. In fact, they are willing to provide certain standardized, transparent and devoted services to the people in the name of the God.
Three well-known Temples from Chennai- Parthasarthy temple in Triplicane, Dhandayudhapani temple in Vadapalani and Kapaleeswarar temple in Mylapore- have applied for ISO 9000:2008 certification on account of being well-maintained temples from the city. The three temples have included their fixed assets, accounts and strict adherence to rituals for scrutiny for ISO.
The cleaning and mopping of Kapaleesswarar and Parthasarathy temples have been outsourced to a private firm. A popular hotel chain ‘Saravana Bhavan’, maintains the Vadapalani temple free of cost.
ISO 9001:2008 is a document of standards for quality management systems maintained by the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. Some of the requirements in ISO 9001:2008 include:
- A set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business;
- Monitoring processes to ensure they are effective;
- Keeping adequate records;
- Checking output for defects
- Regularly reviewing individual processes
- Facilitating continual improvement
Even before these three famous Chennai temples applying for ISO certification, the temples to have already joined the band wagon for this professional certification are Lord Ganesha’s Siddhi Vinayaka Temple in Coimbatore which is, surprisingly, just a 16×16 square foot temple.
A 180-years-old temple of Shri Ram Mandir in Madhya Pradesh boasts of ISO 9001-2008 certification for its exquisite idols and wonderful ambience for the devotees for offering prayers. The Golden Temple in Vellore is also ISO certified temple.
Do you feel that such certification programs can bring professionalism in the operations and management of the well-known temples of the country? Can these temples provide better infrastructural facilities to the devotees in the search of their God?
Lot of doubts arises for the need of ISO certification. The certification is meant to keep the quality of Energy efficiency that is generated. Temples in India are built on this basis of efficiency of Energy for which olden days there was a standard maintiained and now we need a certifying body. Please watch the video to understand the importance of Energy generated.
http://uni5.co/index.php/en/uni5selfawareness
Very true Madhav… Blogging is all about exchange of information amongst oursevles.
Well, I am aware of local temples (much smaller in size) but which are very loyal and social in nature in that they use devotees’ donations very articulately and in a helpful manner for poor of their caste or even other people community people.
Can’t say the same with conviction about trusts of bigger temples whose accumulations go into unbelievable amount. But, going by that, they should serve even bigger social cause. I feel, government should bring some law in areas like Temple donations where the intention with which such donations are made are with the purpose of humanity and help to poor. In effect, the money offered to God should be undoubtedly used for noble causes than any other cause.
Hi Viral,
Didn’t know about some noble temples…my knowledge was only limited to the latter. Good to learn something new. Thanks for sharing.
Dear Madhav, as per the very same article linked above it also mentions that temples can be certified from the point of view of stores, administration, details of its premises, adherence to rituals, festivals and distribution of free ‘vibuthi’ and ‘kumkum’ for inspection by the ISO team. This is as micro an ispection as it could ever get. Any deeper inspection than this could call for hassles and obstacles.
Good point made Madhav… IPO for temples going forward. But that would mean temples become Profit-making organizations and not social-organization who spend the money received from public for social works and welfare of citizens. But, these are fastly-changing times, you never know even with an IPO.
“social-organization who spend the money received from public for social works and welfare of citizens” – do temples really do that? I am probably ignorant of them.
Interesting…
– Is ‘Cleanliness’ part of the ISO certification? And I mean cleaniness not just of the premises, but of the statues, the water that is used for drinking and washing, the ‘teertham’ – the water was poured over the statue, the food that comes out of the kitchen etc. Does the ISO guarantee that the sweat and the saliva of the poojari or the chefs do not fall into the prasad given to the devotees?
All said and done, the ISO certifications may help bring more devotees to the premises if they are cleaner and it is good thinking on part of the temple administration.
I saw this in the linked article- ‘”Kapaleeswarar temple is among the richest in the city. Its annual income is around Rs 4 crore and it has fixed deposits the tune of RS 25 crore. Recently the temple earned Rs 17 crore from the sale of land for construction of the Mass Rapid Transit System.”. Considering the revenues, reserves and assuming costs less than 1 crore, I think a PAT of 50-75% might be realized if the temple were to go IPO !!!