A Jaya initiative: Teaching TN temple staff virtues of courtesy

Next time when you undertake a pilgrimage to temples in Tamil Nadu, don’t get bowled over by the behavior of temple employees including priests. The Jayalalithaa government is launching a massive awareness and training programme to make the temple staff across the state to be courteous and polite to visitors irrespective of their caste and creed.

“Our objective is to have an entirely unique breed of temple staff who will be on par with the best in the world. They will remind  visitors of customer relations staff in five-star hotels,” Dr M Rajaram, secretary, Tamil Development, Religious Endowments, and Information Department, Tamil Nadu government, told DNA.

Tamil Nadu boasts of a number of ancient temples and monuments spread across the state from Palk Straits to the northern border adjoining Andhra Pradesh. The move to tone up the temple staff and premises comes in the backdrop of complaints from devotees about grabbing of land belonging to temples and backdoor appointments of party volunteers as temple staff during the previous Karunanidhi regime.

He said the move to train the temple staff in etiquette and good manners is in response to the number of complaints received by the government from devotees and tourists. “There are complaints that some of the temple staff, especially those working as usheres, security and subordinate staff are rude to the devotees,” he said. There were many reports about temple staff asking for tips from the devotees.

According to Dr Rajaram, who has vast experience as tourism secretary, the temple staff also needed training in hygiene and cleanliness. “The dress they wear, the way they speak to the devotees and how they serve them need to be changed in tune with the times,” he said. Services of leading managment teachers and behaviour specialists will be hired for this unique programme, he said.

The state government is in discussion with the Archaeological Survey of India to preserve the sanctity of the temples without disturbing their environment and heritage style construction. “Most of the temple buildings have a thick growth of algae and microbes which in the long run lead to the ruin of the temples. The ASI has the technical know-how to save the heritage buildings from algae and microbe attacks. We will  undertake a major drive to get the temple buildings of these algae growth,” he said.

As part of the move to have safe and clean environment for the temples, the government will soon issue legislation for controlling the usage of plastic bags in temples. The 'prasadams' from the temples will be issued in eco-friendly bags instead of conventional plastic carry bags.

Last year saw the Kerala government declaring Sabarimala, the holy shrine in the Western Ghats a plastic-free zone. There were complains that the last couple of years saw an unprecedented growth of plastic waste in the temple premises in Tamil Nadu. The state facing a debt burden of more than Rs1 lakh  burden is probing means to increase the state coffers through medical and pilgrimage tourism.