Rs. 85 million collected at Pathibhara temple

By Chandra Pandak,Taplejung, Dec. 30: Cash offerings of nearly Rs. 85 million have been collected at the famous Pathibhara (Mukkumlung) Temple in Taplejung.

Organising a press conference on Thursday, officials of the Pathibhara Area Development Committee informed that Rs. 84,594,336 had been collected in cash offerings till December 16 this fiscal year. Of this amount, Rs. 6,811,110 was collected in the two months between mid-October and mid-December, the committee's Executive Director Prajin Hangbang said.

From the collected offerings, Rs. 1,070,787 had been spent till December 16. According to Hangbang, this amount was spent on employee remuneration, transportation and management of the gathered money, food for security personnel and project monitoring.

"The remaining amount has been deposited in Nepal Bank, Laxmi Sunrise Bank, Sanima Bank, Prabhu Bank and NMB Bank," Hangbang said. The Committee shared that Rs. 68.8 million had been kept in these banks as fixed deposits and they had earned an interest of Rs. 258,440 in the last two months.

In addition to the cash offerings, the temple also received 186 Tolas six Lals of gold from devotees.

Similarly, it has 92 kilograms and 650 grams of silver, 6,539 kilograms and 775 grams of copper and 16,368 kilograms of bells made from different metals. 

The committee informed that it planned to refine the collected gold and silver and sell it soon.

Meanwhile, Rakki Thebe, chairman of the Pathibhara Committee, said that they had begun work to make the donation box more managed, and the offering process more transparent. 

He also said that they were focused on making the journey to Pathibhara more convenient for the pilgrims.