Maharashtra allows Shirdi temple to operate food facilities

Ahmednagar Collector Rajendra Bhosale said that the district administration has asked the temple trust to ensure that the distribution and consumption of prasad will not take place in the temple premises.

The ‘Prasadalaya’ can function with 50% seating capacity, with the staff fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

These facilities were temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The temple trust has been allowing 15,000 devotees to enter the temple on a daily basis through online passes and 10,000 devotees through offline passes, but has kept the ‘prasad’ counters closed.

In the pre-pandemic times, lakhs of devotees used to visit Shirdi every day.

The Maharashtra government reopened religious places in the state on 7 October, after being closed for more than six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Religious places of worship were reopened in Maharashtra in November last year, after the first coronavirus wave, but were again closed to the public in March 2021 after the second wave started in the state.

kovid status in the state

This comes as Maharashtra recorded 960 new coronavirus infections and 41 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Among the eight administrative regions of Maharashtra, Mumbai region recorded the highest number of 425 new Covid-19 cases, followed by Pune with 324 and Nashik region with 133. 25 new cases were reported in Kolhapur region, 18 in Aurangabad, 19 in Latur, 11 in Nagpur and five in Akola region.

The caseload in the state rose to 66,32,257 and the death toll rose to 1,40,807.

1,043 patients were discharged, taking the total number of cured patients to 64,78,422. The state has a recovery rate of 97.68% while the death rate is 2.12%. Maharashtra has 9,366 active cases.