The Cochin Devaswom Board is appointing 54 non-Brahmin priests. The board has never appointed so many non-Brahmins as temple priests before. Taking to Facebook, Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said, "The Kerala government has created history again by appointing 54 non-Brahmin priests including seven people from SC/ST community to the Cochin Devaswom Board.”
He wrote that the appointment list was prepared following the PSC model of OMR test and interview by the Devaswom Recruitment Board. “Merit list and reservation list were included in the appointments. In total, 70 priests are to be appointed. Among the 54 people who were listed from the backward castes, 31 are from the merit list. Only 16 people from the forward castes got selected in the merit list. Of the 34 people from the Ezhava community who got appointed, 27 are from the merit list. Of the seven people appointed from the OBC community, two are in the merit list. Of the four people appointed from the Dheevara community, two are in the merit list. One each from the Hindu Nadar and Vishwakarma communities have also been appointed,” he wrote.
Earlier, 36 non-Brahmins, including six Dalits, were appointed to the Travancore Devaswom Board, Kadakampally Surendran added in his post.
In December 2016, the first Dalit president of the Cochin Devaswom Board, assumed office. Dr MK Sudarshan, a medical doctor, got through the Civil Services examination in 1994 and took charge as president on December 5, 2016. He has completed his tenure, and is no longer the president.
The Cochin Devaswom Board was formed under the act of XV of Travancore-Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions Act, 1950, which has come under discussion recently, following the recent debate on who the temples of Kerala really belonged to.