Ahmednagar: Shani Shingnapur Temple gets new board of trustees

Ahmednagar: Nearly five years after the world-famous Shani Shingnapure Temple opened up for women devotees, its managing trust, the “Shri Shaneshwar Devasthan trust” on Wednesday got a new board of trustees, an official said here.

The Ahmednagar Assistant Charity Commissioner announced the much-anticipated 11-member Board of Trustee which will take office from January 1, 2021, for a five-year term.

The official has said that the trustees will meet and elect the office-bearers like Chairman, Secretary, Committee Members, etc, from among themselves and inform the Charity Commissioner’s office within three months.

The new Board of Trustees includes: Sunita Vitthal Adhav (the sole woman), Popat Ramchandra Shete, Popat Laxman Kurhat, Bhagwat Sopan Bankar, Appasaheb Dnyandev Shete, Vikas Nanasaheb Bankar, Shivaji Annasaheb Darandale, Balasaheb Bansi Borude, Deepak Dadasaheb Darandale, Chaburao Namdeo Bhutkar and Shaharam Raosaheb Darandale.

Welcoming the development, Shiv Sena leader and Water & Soil Conservation Minister Shankarrao Gadakh – who hails from Shani Shingnapur village – said that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had maintained the traditions of safeguarding Hindu religion.

“Every villager has contributed and sacrificed to raising the temple trust to this level. The CM will inaugurate a development project for the Panasnala River nearby and we shall make efforts to get CSR funds from corporate houses for the purpose,” Gadakh added.

In April 2016, the temple shot into global limelight after it broke a nearly four-century old strict tradition by permitted two women to climb onto the open temple platform and perform pooja of the black stone image of Lord Shani.

Incidentally, Shani Shingnapur is also renowned worldwide as perhaps the only human settlement where homes, shops or even a bank have no doors or locks as the much-revered and oft-feared Lord Shani, or Saturn is considered the guardian of the village.