THEY SAY that in times of dire need, you turn to God. That’s precisely what Puneites did when they ran out of cash after the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on Thursday. They ran to temples and gurudwaras, and pleaded not with God, but with the priests to provide them with change from the collection boxes in exchange of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. At the Hollywood Gurudwara in Camp area, the donation box is opened once a week on Thursdays. However, seeing the queue of people gathered outside the gurudwara trust’s office to exchange currency, the officials decided against opening the donation box. AUDIO: Worried About Replacing Rs 500 & Rs 1000 Notes? Don’t Fall For This Fraud Call “Our weekly collection made with the amount donated by the devotees comes to around Rs 2.5 lakhs. As a regular practice, we take out the donation box amount on Thursdays and count it between 7 and 9 in the morning. Over the past several years, around 15 shopkeepers from nearby areas visit the gurudwara office around 9 and 9.30 am on Thursdays wherein they give notes of bigger denominations like Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 in exchange of notes of smaller denominations like Rs 100, 50, 20 and 10. The donation amount is later deposited in the bank account of the temple trust. Today, however, nearly 100-odd people had gathered at the gurudwara office since morning. Gauging that it could have resulted into a chaos at the gurudwara, we decided to open the donation box on Sunday this week,” said Raj Singh, one of the members of the Gurudwara Trust. Dagdusheth Ganpatil Temple’s treasurer Mahesh Suryavanshi said while many people had inquired with the temple if they are willing to exchange smaller denomination notes with the bigger ones, the temple refused. The donation amount at the iconic and highly-revered temple is counted every week on Saturday and it comes to around Rs 12 to 15 lakhs. “Years ago, we used to allow this practice- giving change- but it used to cause a lot of confusion as well as wastage of time among the staff. Last several years, we have been directly depositing our donation amount in the temple trust bank account. One unusual thing that we noticed on Wednesday was a significant drop in the number of devotees; perhaps people did not want to part with smaller denomination notes at this moment,” said Suryavanshi, further making a point in a prophetic manner that after trying out all possibilities up to December, if the black money hoarders will not be able to do anything about their Rs 500-Rs1,000 notes, they will eventually donate to big temples across the country. “That is one place where no one will question one’s intention if he/she is offering a large amount of cash as donation,” he adds. WATCH VIDEO While the Tulshibaug Temple Trust too has received queries from people residing in the neighbouring areas, the members have decided that if need be, then only the members who are associated with Tulshibaug Ganesh Mandal, would be allowed to exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with notes of other denominations. “However, for doing that too, we have set up some limits so that every member is able to exchange equal amounts of cash. There are around 500 people associated with our Ganesh mandal. Our donation amount comes to nearly Rs 70,000 for a week and is counted every Saturday,” said Nitin Pandit, treasurer.
