Court seeks clean prasadam ? making practices at Sabarimala

• Court seeks clean prasadam?making practices at Sabarimala (28 Nov 2012)
• Fungus in Appam : Bid to desecrate Sabarimala suspected (27 Nov 2012)

Fungus in Appam : Bid to desecrate Sabarimala suspected

November 27, 2012

Hindu outfits are up in arms against the alleged propaganda to tarnish the piety of the Lord Ayyappa temple of Sabarimala in Kerala, as seen in the media reports on the discovery last week of fungus infection in some Appams (sweetmeat), the Prasada distributed to devotees from the shrine.

According to devotees, reports that the fungus found in the Appams could be hazardous to health and could damage the digestive system and liver were part of an evil campaign intended at tarnishing the pious image of the Sabarimala shrine where a minimum of three crore pilgrims have the Darshan of the deity during the 60-day annual pilgrimage season.

Sasikala Teacher, State president of the Hindu Aikya Vedi, demanded registration of criminal case against those responsible for the Appams getting infected by fungus. “This too could be part of a conspiracy being hatched against Sabarimala for the past several years. The Hindus cannot feign ignorance of this anymore,” she said.

Fungus infection was found in the Appams bought by certain pilgrims from the temple’s sales counters last week. In the examination held following this, several such infected Appams were found in the stocks room. After this, the authorities destroyed over 700,000 Appams — costing `25 lakh — prepared in a particular period by burning them in incinerator.

Some samples of the Appams were sent for analysis at the microbiology laboratory of the Council for Food Research and Development (CFRD) at Konni, Pathanamthitta. The CFRD analysts reported that the yeast and mould count found in the Appam samples was very high and “hence cannot be recommended for human consumption”.

They also said that this could be due to lack of good hygiene practice during preparation. However, reports came out saying that the analysis at the CFRD had found that the fungus found in the Appams was so toxic that it could cause liver ailments if consumed when, according to the authorities, there was no word on the fungus’s toxicity in the council’s report.

The Travancore Devaswom Board, the temple’s administration body, the Joint Food Safety Commissioner and the Special Commissioner appointed by the High Court for Sabarimala had explained that the CFRD report had not made any reference to the aspect of toxicity of the fungus in the Appams. In fact, the council lab had not gone into this aspect at all, sources said.

“It seems that there is no basis for these reports. It is for the Devaswom Board and the Government to find out how such a dangerous campaign had originated and was carried on by a large section of the media against the Sabarimala temple in the name of the Appams,” said a Hindu Aikya Vedi office-bearer.

Devotees are of the opinion that the Devaswom Board is primarily responsible for incidents like contamination of Prasadas given to the pilgrims from the shrine as it is the agency which arranges for their preparation. It is the board’s duty to ensure faultless practices for making Appams and Aravana (the other Prasada of the temple).

The Devaswom Board was directly in charge of making Appams till last pilgrimage season but it outsourced the process to three contractors this season. “It now seems that the board had not gone in detail to the credentials of these contractors before hiring their services. Otherwise, this situation would not have arisen,” said the Health official.

Source : Daily Pioneer