Lighthouse

Author(s): Udayvallabhvijay
Publisher: Pragna Prabodh Parivar

Page 26

Another interesting thing about temple oriented employment is that it caters more to the illiterates. The reason is that this sector is not education based but skill based. It is difficult to find a parallel phenomenon in the modern world.
When the Prime Minister of India Shri Modiji addressed thousands of Indians at Madison square in USA he stressed that his administration is paying more attention to create skilled labour. One should not forget that the tradition of temple construction is doing the same thing for the past several centuries.
When such extra-ordinary vision is opening up in connection with the activity of temple construction, it would be fair to include the activity of jeernoddhar of old temples. In fact, the activity of jeernoddhar extends to much wider area rather than construction of new temples. Naturally, its social output is also much greater.
According to one estimate, at any given point of time in Mumbai, lakhs of people are occupied in "temple group of companies". One estimate puts the figure of people employed in Derasar related activities in seven digits. If Jains, whose population is in eight digits are providing livelihood connected with temples to people whose number runs in seven digits, one cannot ignore the social output of this sector.
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