Meera Krishnan says that the QR codes at her local temple in Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s capital city, have made her life easier. The QR codes allow visitors to buy entry tickets to ceremonies and to make donations. “I am very religious, so I do go to many temples,” Krishnan, a senior arts manager, told Rest of World.
Hindu temples in the southern state of Tamil Nadu are going digital. In 2022, the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department of the state government announced that under a new pilot program, 536 temples would start accepting payments via QR codes for services including donations, payment for VIP entry during popular festivals, special prayer ceremonies, offerings to the deities, and charity meal distribution programs.
“Traditionally, temples are very cash-heavy locations. The amount of money that they handle is mind-boggling,” Ramesh Narasimhan, CEO of payment services company Worldline India, told Rest of World. The larger temples can collect as much as $26 million from donation boxes every month. In Tamil Nadu, the Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple collected more than $64,000 in three months.
Worldline India is working with the government-backed National Informatics Centre to run the QR code pilot program in Tamil Nadu. The move seemed like a natural progression in India, which accounts for over 46% of global digital payments and has 650 million smartphone users. “The implementation [of QR codes] has already reduced cash exchanges and ensures more efficiency. Digital donations go directly to the bank account of the temple trust, and devotees can book darshans and other services with ease,” Narasimhan said.
The QR codes, Krishnan said, don’t always work properly, but, for the most part, people are happy to use them, knowing that their money is going directly to the temple authorities. Misappropriation of funds has been a concern with cash payments.
“I had gone on a temple trip with a friend of mine, and, at 48, I was the youngest there,” Krishnan recalled. “But everyone was very comfortable paying digitally. Nowadays, most people are tech-savvy. If I can’t do it, I can ask my daughter how to do it. … This technology has actually made temples much more accessible to people.”