Will Lord Ganesha now accept donations in forms of shares or stocks?

Devotees visiting the famous Siddhivinayak temple in the city can offer donations to Lord Ganesha in the form of shares or stocks of listed entities in addition to traditional offerings in cash and gold. The Siddhivinayak Temple has tied up with SBICAP Securities to provide devotees with an electronic platform to make offerings and donations of financial instruments.

"Devotees across the world can now donate to the temple in the form of shares through this facility. This will help in increasing revenue of the temple which will be further used for social cause," Narendra Murari Rane, chairman, Shree Siddhivinayak Ganapati Temple Trust said in Mumbai on Tuesday.

The initiative will initially allow for donations like shares or stocks of listed entities to be made in the electronic format via a demat account set up specially for the temple. This will be later extended to other financial instruments like mutual funds, bonds and gold ETFs. Rane said the donated shares will be sold on the same day or next day without considering the market conditions.

"The temple has deposited around 44 kg of gold stock under the government's Gold Monetisation Scheme, launched last November. The temple has a gold pool of around 160 kg which includes 72 kg in the form of jewellery," Rane said. He said the temple gets donation of around Rs 75 crore every year in the form of gold and cash.