Malabar Devaswom Board announces festival allowance for employees

The Malabar Devaswom Board (MDB) declared a festival allowance of ₹7,000 for its permanent employees and ₹3,500 for the temporary staff in various temples under its control. Employees in grade three and grade four temples that did not have sufficient income to pay the festival allowance would also be provided with the benefit.

The State government had allocated ₹5,22,93,600 as the second instalment of grant-in-aid to clear the salary dues of temple employees from the Malabar Devaswom Management Fund. A decision on the festival allowance had been taken at a special meeting, which approved the sanctioning of ₹5 crore for the purpose.

The MDB also decided on Wednesday (September 3, 2025) to increase the dearness allowance (DA) of ministerial employees from the existing 15 percent to 19 percent, in line with that of government employees. Employees in super grade temples would also be eligible for the revised benefits.

As per the latest decision, the DA of employees in grades one to four would be increased from 19 percent to 23 percent. The festival allowance of retired employees and executive officers would also be increased from ₹1,500 to ₹1,750.

MDB president O.K. Vasu said the revised allowances would benefit about 7,000 temple employees directly. MDB standing committee chairmen K. Janardhanan and P.K. Madhusoodanan, along with members A. Ramaswamy, T.N.K. Saseendran, K. Sudhakumari, Prajeesh Thiruthiyil, K. Ramachandran, and K.N. Udayan, had been present at the special meeting on Wednesday.