Author: Pramod Panwar
Publication: The Times of India
Date: May 27, 2009
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Temple-gets-Rs-5-crore-donation-in-7-hours/articleshow/4582011.cms
Devotion doesn't know recession. Especially
in the town of Unjha, about 80 km north of Ahmedabad, known for its jeera
and isabgol trade.
On Tuesday, a temple here raised a head-spinning
Rs 5 crore in seven hours flat - around Rs 1.2 lakh every minute.
The occasion: Fund-raising for the 18th centenary
celebration of the Umiya Maa temple, which has a large Patel following, to
be held in November this year. About 21 donors, most of them industrialists
belonging to Kadva Patel community, contributed to the main corpus collected
through a bidding process called 'Uchamani'. An Ahmedabad-based builder, Amrut
Patel donated Rs 1.25 crore to perform the Shahastra Chandi Yagna, which will
be performed between November 28 and December 2 this year.
CK Patel, a California-based hotelier chipped
in with Rs 61.61 lakh. Patel, an old Congress hand, recently switched sides
to join BJP at the behest of CM Narendra Modi. Organisers claim the main temple
of Umiya Maa will enter its 1,900th year this November.
"We are planning to raise more funds
for the programme. Besides local businessmen, we received several bids from
NRGs scattered the world over," said Manubhai Patel, chairman of Unjha
Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), who is also on the temple's
celebration panel. "More than 5 lakh people will participate in the yagna
everyday. We are making arrangements to accommodate over 50 lakh people during
the function," he said.
The entire event was webcast and watched by
Gujarati diaspora spread across the world.
