Kapali Temple Battery Cars Dumped in Kalyana Mandapam

This section has featured many stories on the HR & CE model of ‘all income to them’ and ‘all expenses to the donor’ (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2016/12/nachiyar-koil-divya-desam.html). Mylapore’s Kapaleeswarar temple is a prime example. Despite being one of the six richest temples in TN, the Temple has always been seeking financial support of the donors.

In the second week of March 2020, just under a fortnight prior to the national lockdown, Kapali temple was abuzz. The top officials of Sundaram Finance were headed to the Eastern Raja Gopuram to present the two electric golf carts that they were donating to the temple that evening. It was a gala event with devotees in good numbers witnessing the two new vehicles being handed over to the temple. The donation of the two battery cars was big enough for the then HR & CE Minister Sevvoor S Ramachandran and Mylapore MLA R Nataraj too to be present on the occasion. The two vehicles had cost Rs. 12Lakhs.

This story comes in light of the announcement last week by the HR & CE Minister P Sekar Babu of allocating wheel chairs for temples across TN to serve the disabled and the elderly.

The launch of the battery cars at the Kapali Temple was timed just ahead of the annual Panguni Utsavam where several thousands participate. It was expected that the two vehicles would be put to use at the utavam but with the national lockdown the utsavam was cancelled and actual operation of the vehicles had been delayed.

The six seater vehicle was to operate outside the temple on the four Mada Streets. The idea was for the two battery operated cars to pick up devotees from the Mada Streets and drop them at the Eastern Raja Gopuram, and to pick them back from the Raja Gopuram and drop them at appropriate points.

The temple JC Kaveri had said at that time that the two battery cars would run in the first half between 630am and 12.30pm and in the evening from 4pm to 9pm with the battery being charged between 12.30pm and 4pm when the temple is closed for darshan. 

The vehicles had come with warranty with support for all maintenance requirements. Both the vehicles had also been insured with third party insurance.

The then MD of the company TT Srinivasaraghavan had hoped for the vehicles to serve devotees, particularly the elderly and the physically challenged to access the centuries old Kapaleeswarar temple. “We trust and hope that the vehicles will be put to good use for the benefit of the public at large”, he had said that evening while presenting the keys of the two cars to the temple JC.

Wave 1 led to closure of the temple for a long time. Wave 2 in the summer of 2021 too led to a rather prolonged restrictions for devotees. Despite the high profile launch, these two unexpected events had delayed the operation of the vehicles.

However, with the reopening of the temple late last year, one had expected that these would serve the elderly. But the two vehicles have not been anywhere in sight around the temple except at the PS School ground during the night of Maha Sivarathri this year when a mega night long event was organised by the temple. The Panguni Utsavam this year witnessed huge crowd (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2022/03/kapali-devotee-aparna-panguni-utsavam.html) with devotees staying back through the night for the Rishabha Vahanam. Following the big annual utsavam in Panguni, devotees have been thronging the temple in large numbers

But the two vehicles have remained dumped at the temple’s Kalyana Mandapam at Venkatesa Agraharam. The temple authorities have said that when they tried to operate the golf carts, many visitors wanted to use the service for their shopping. The authorities also said that beggars who are seen in good numbers outside the temple began boarding the vehicle for a drop to the temple entrance which made it difficult for other passengers to sit.

Many devotees that this writer had spoken to shortly after the launch had raised apprehension on the operational challenges of running this service around the Mada Streets unlike in Srirangam Ranganathaswamy temple where it is operated within the temple complex ferrying devotees from the Perumal sannidhi to the Thaayar Sannidhi. The benefits of the battery cars were clearly seen in Srirangam but in Mylapore the temple authorities have failed to capitalize on the large corporate donation and the launch that took place amidst media glare has fallen flat with the two vehicles remaining unused. Like with most other things, with passage of time, devotees too have forgotten that this facility was made available by the corporate for their benefit.

Yet another instance of how HR & CE has misused (in this case unused) the services of responsible donors.