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MUMBAI, INDIA, January 29, 2006: If all goes well, Hindu temples across India could soon have an apex body. A two-day meeting of temple bodies, including one from Nepal, began here on Saturday to examine the possibility of forming a national trust for temple management. The International Temple Summit 2006 has representatives from the management committees of 25 prominent temples in India and from the Pashupatinath Temple of Nepal. “We will be releasing a vision document at the end of the summit in which we will mention the formation of a common organization as a priority,” said Sanjay Bhagwat, CEO of the Siddhivinayak Temple trust, which organized the summit. “Such an organization would be a positive step towards sharing of ideas and solutions to common problems faced by temples in India,” Bhagwat told IANS. The summit will organise workshops and presentations on various subjects related to temple management such as security issues, finance and training of personnel. It will also address issues like waste generated at pilgrim centers, terrorist threats and creation of a common web portal to disseminate information on all major shrines. Some of the temples represented at the meet are those at Palani Hills (Tamil Nadu), Guruvayoor (Kerala), Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), Vaishnodevi (Jammu and Kashmir) and at Badrinath in Uttaranchal. “The meeting is a platform to share expertise in the use of technology in security and crowd management, apart from disaster management,” Bhagwat said. “This is the first time such a summit has been organized. We feel an umbrella organization for temples across the country has now become imperative,” Bhagwat added.

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