INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Thiruvananthapuram: For the first time in its history, a scheduled tribe person will soon become a priest in a shrine, managed by the apex
temple body Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), in Kerala.In a path-breaking move, the TDB, which manages over 1,200 shrines across the
southern state, has decided to appoint 19 people, including 18 belonging to scheduled caste and one from scheduled tribe, as priests in its
Temple."This is for the first time that the temple body is appointing a scheduled tribe person as a priest in shrines under TDB," state
Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said in a Facebook post.People from 'lower' caste are appointed in the part-time shanti (priest)
posts through special recruitment, he said.So far, 310 people have been selected for the post of part-time priests in the Travancore
Scheduled Tribe communities for the examination at that time, a separate rank list was prepared as per a special notification for them,
which was published on November 5, he said.Though there were four vacancies notified for the ST community, only one application was
received, the minister said.After the Left government came to power, the recruitment board was restructured and a total of 815 people had
have been appointed in various temples in the southern state in the last four and half year tenure of the government, official sources
