0		Shirdi, Sai, Baba, beats, credit, crunch, become, 2nd, richest, temple, country

So much for the credit crunch. Everyone else is having tough time raising money. Even the Tata’s had problem raising money to fund the Jaguar acquisition. But guess who has raised funds without even asking for it? It is Shirdi Sai Baba.

Shirdi Sai Baba temple located in Shirdi, Maharastra is the second richest temple in the country. For the year 2008, it collected a cash 81 crore, 920 kgs of gold and 440 kgs of silver.

In the last week of december itself the temple has received 4 crores of cash. Must be the NRI donations. No wait. Are they not having a credit crunch? I guess Sai Baba was an exception.

In 2007 the temple has received 60 crore of cash, 104 kgs of gold and 235 kgs of silver. That is a 35% increase in cash YOY, almost 800% increase in the quantity of gold and 87% increase in the quantity of silver.

I guess you already know but in case you are wondering, Tirumala-Tirupathi’s Lord Venkateshwara (Balaji) is the richest god. Not only in India but in the world. Tirupathi has surpassed Vatican city in terms of the number of visitors and revenues (oops donations) in 2007. Hair offered to Lord Balaji alone will fetch Rs.750 crores per year. You can only figure about Hundi collections.

Would Shirdi Sai Baba’s revenues be above or below Vatican?