The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) is experiencing a never-before downturn in its revenue collection at Sabarimala.There has been a drastic fall in number of pilgrims visiting the hill shrine.According to reports, there has been a decline of over Rs 7 crore as compared to the revenue last year during this season.
Reports say that a footfall of just about 1.5 lakh pilgrims has been recorded between November 16 and November 22 evening, which is very low as compared to about 1 lakh pilgrims visiting the Lord Ayappa shrine each day last year during the Mandalam season.
The sale of Aravana, the most-sought-after Sabarimala prasadom, was badly affected in the first week of the ongoing season.
The TDB could sell only around 2.4 lakh cans of aravana in seven days against the sale of over 10 lakh cans during the same period the previous year, sources said. Similarly, the appam sale during the first seven days was below 50,000 packets. This is against the average daily sale of 60,000 packets during the last pilgrim season.
The hundi collection too has been reportedly fallen by 70% during the first week, in comparison to the same period during the previous pilgrim season.
With fewer takers, the TDB stopped Aravana production from 4 p.m. on Thursday as it already had a buffer stock of 29 lakh cans of aravana. The appam production was stopped three days ago. The TDB has already got a stock of two lakh packets of appam as on Thursday afternoon.
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