The places of worship across Maharashtra were opened on Monday for the first time since March. In many places, temple administrations have curtailed the visiting hours toclean and sanitise the temple premises.

Last week the Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray announced the reopening of temples but requested devotees to follow Covid distancing rules.

Vivek Bhide, who is the Chief trustee of the popular Ganesh Temple at Ganpatipule in Ratnagiri district told BusinessLine that the hours of operation have been reduced to 9 from 15 hours so that the temple can disinfected. Since morning around 3,000 people have visited the temple, he added.

State guidelines

The State guidelines have asked the temple administrations not to allow children below the age of 10, senior citizens above the age of 65 and pregnant women to enter the premises. Distribution of prasad and sprinkling of holy water is also not allowed.

At Mumbai's Siddhivinayak temple, the administration has decided to allow not more than 100 devotees an hour and with an upper limit of 1,000 devotees a day.

However, in temples towns of Maharashtra, the business has not yet picked up. Before the Covidpandemic, Shirdi, Pandharpur, Kolhapur, and Jejuri had a booming business of food, lodging and other services for the pilgrims.

Huge losses

The shrine of Sai Baba in Shirdi that every year lakhs of pilgrims throng the holy site.

A local entrepreneur from Shirdi, Sudesh Patil said that the businesses are suffering huge losses due to temple closure. The Maharashtra government could have taken the decision of opening the shrine earlier. It could have followed the guidelines and best practices like other shrines such as Tirupati.