MUMBAI, INDIA, January 7, 2006: The Siddhivinayak temple in Prabhadevi wants to ban offerings by devotees because the temple management thinks the act of offering prasad and taking it back after Ganapati has blessed it is time-consuming and creates problems in crowd management. The number of devotees coming to Siddhivinayak temple every year has increased to 10 million. If the practice of accepting offerings continues, it will be hard to handle crowds and make darshan (sight of the Deity) easier, the management says. However, if the practice is dropped, the temple can increase the number of devotees it can take into the sanctum sanctorum from the daily peak-hour average of 1,500 to 2,500, chief executive officer of the temple trust Sanjay Bhagwat said. He pointed out that the Tirupati temple, which does not accept offerings, accommodates 2,500 devotees every hour. The temple will soon do a survey among pilgrims to ask them what they think of banning prasad in favor of accessibility for more pilgrims
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