PATHANAMTHITTA: The stockpile of stale ‘aravana’ at the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple, totalling 6.65 lakh cans, is being moved out to be disposed of scientifically. According to Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president P S Prasanth, the cans are being transported from the hill shrine using tractors and trailer trucks, amounting to around 300 tractor-loads of material.

TDB officials have been present in Pamba since Saturday to speed up the process and to overview the preparedness ahead of the main pilgrimage season, he said.

A Rs 1.16-crore contract for the disposal of ‘aravana’ has been given to the Indian Centrifuge Engineering Solutions. ‘Aravana’, made with rice and jaggery, is one of the major sources of income for the hill shrine. The cans will be transported to Ettumanur, where they will be checked by the TDB officials.

Subsequently, the material will be sent to Hyderabad to be dried and processed into animal feed and manure.

Prepared for the 2022-23 pilgrimage season, the ‘aravana’ that has gone stale was worth Rs 5.5 crore. Its sale has been restrained by a Kerala High Court order which was issued after the Government Analyst’s Laboratory and the Spices Board Laboratory found that the cardamom used in the preparation contained pesticide levels above the permissible limit.

Though there was another verdict from the apex court favouring the use of the ‘aravana’, by then, it had already decayed.