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Sringeri temple goes eco-friendly

Special Correspondent

Solar energy is being used for cooking purposes

FREE POWER: The solar panels of the solar cooking unit installed at the Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Sringeri.

SRINGERI: Sringeri Sharada Peetham — one of the four Maths established by Jagadguru Shankaracharya for the propagation of Sanatana Hindu Dharma — has of late become a blend of tradition and modernity.

One of the modern gadgets it has acquired is a solar energy plant for cooking purpose. The plant has been working successfully ever since was installed.

It is incidentally the third shrine in the country to take up solar energy-based cooking on a mass scale, the other two shrines being the Venkateswara temple at Tirumala and the Mount Abu Temple in Rajasthan.

The one installed at Sringeri is the biggest among the three.

Saving

The fact that the solar energy plant caters to over 10,000 devotees every day speaks of its significance in saving expenditure on fuel besides keeping the surroundings clean and free from air pollution.

Though the switch over to solar energy for cooking purpose by the administration of the Sringeri Math is a recent development, it has been harnessing the solar energy for streetlights within the precincts of the Math which are fixed on the road leading the Narasimhavana — the abode of the seer of the peetham on the other side of the Tunga since long.

Earlier, the Peetham used to use diesel engines for boiling water for cooking purposes, using nearly 4,000 litres of diesel every month.

Apart from serving food to about 5,000 devotees at a time, the peetham serves food to students of nearby schools under its midday meal scheme.

Solar energy is used for boiling water in the boilers and the steam thus generated is transmitted to the large cookers.

A special ground level platform has been constructed to install the solar panels in Sringeri.

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