By Apurva Bhatt

  Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis presented theISO 9001 certificate to the Siddhivinayak temple trustees on Wednesday.  According to  the Chairman of the temple trust Narendra Rane several activities collectively earned them this honour. One of the shrine's largest donations was made recently when it donated Rs 34 crore towards the state's drought relief plan. Rane said, "The government wants to make 25,000 villages drought-free. We have allocated a sum of Rs 1 crore to each district. Rather than hand over the money to one authority, we met the collector of each district to present the cheque. We identified villages which are facing a dire situation and will continue monitoring the use of funds." 

Over the next few months the trust will spend Rs 7.5 crore to install 102 dialysis machines in small town and village hospitals. "Countless kidney patients suffer because they cannot afford even transport fare to city hospitals for dialysis, let alone the cost of treatment. Our project will bring lifesaving healthcare to their doorstep," Rane added. The temple trust also gave Rs 1.5 crore to Wadia Hospital, which set up 20 neonatal ICUs. 

It allocates around Rs 1 crore each year to outstation patients suffering from heart, liver and kidney ailments as well as accident victims or those who require knee replacement. A sum of Rs 25,000 per patient is forwarded to treating hospitals. Rane said they spend Rs 1.5 crore on distributing books to college students each year. "We run a library with a seating capacity of 180 which also has 21 computers. Apart from that we have a Braille library with 8,000 titles," he said. 

Crowd control was also a factor that earned them this quality certificate. The temple claims it has installed an elaborate security apparatus including 100 CCTV cameras, with monitoring control rooms in-house and at the local police station. There are metal detectors and electronic doorways. Siddhivinayak Temple reportedly receives 15 lakh visitors on Angarika Sankashti and around 1 lakh on public holidays or weekends. It also arranges for tents, fans, water and shoe counters at a nearby ground.