Tirupati – the Richest Temple in the World – turns Green
The richest temple in the world is taking a new lead in another area. It is going Green!
A temple which gets 30 to 40 million pilgrims annually, (50k to 100k a day), food is a major project. Every day 50,000 kilos of rice and lentils is cooked for free food distribution to the devotees of Lord Venkateshwara. Apart from this, curry and vegetables are also prepared, as well as the famous Prasadam (which incidentally has been copyrighted and cannot be copied by anyone!).
For a food operation that big, the daily fuel consumption was tremendous. Now, the temple has Solar Panels installed, which move with the direction of the sun to capture maximum sunlight. The heat creates 4000 kgs of high pressure steam at a temperature of 180C – which fuels the cooking! Not just that, Tirupati is contributing to a reduction of 1350 kgs of greenhouse gases due to this.
The Temple is able to save around roughly 48,000 gallons of Diesel every year! The Solar Cookers were set up by Gadhia Solar Energy Systems.
Not just this, the temple has also installed wind turbines donated by Suzlon Energy and Enercon to generate 7.5 megawatts of power. Green Energy Solutions, a Tirupati based wind energy company now wants to develop wind farms to supply the entire electricity needs of the temple.
The devotees give huge donations. It is time these donations can be put to some great use. And, it is time that the God (and his Temple), which turns everyone else turn green with envy at his wealth – turns Green himself. For the good of all.
