With the Parsi population in the vicinity of fire temples lessening, the Navsari Bhagarsath Anjumanna Atash Behram sent out a plea for assistance to WZO (World Zoroastrian Organisation) Trust Funds (WZOTF) chairman Dinshaw Tamboly for assistance. The Zoroastrian-owned Dhanji Bacha House opposite the fire temple was to be purchased by a non-Zoroastrian family, stated Ervad Khurshed Desai, trustee and honorary secretary of the 254-year-old Atash Behram and the Vadi Dar-e-Meher Trust Fund, in a note to Parsiana. The trustees were apprehensive that the main hall of the fire temple where jashans and other religious ceremonies are held could be clearly seen from that property.
Navsari Atash Behram (l) and Dhanji Bacha House (2nd from r): "sanctity and privacy" maintained
Tamboly in turn appealed to the Zoroastrian Charity Funds of Hongkong, Canton and Macao (ZCFHCM) for assistance. Though the proposed buyer of the building offered Rs 1,00,00,000 for the property, its owners were willing to sell to a community member for Rs 77,00,000, noted Desai. The Hong Kong anjuman donated the amount required for the purchase of the property and the stamp duty involved. This has helped maintain the "sanctity and privacy” of the fire temple, wrote Desai.
The property, to be renamed Hong Kong Zoroastrian Center, will be used to provide accommodation to mobeds, guest house facilities for families of priests in training, and Zoroastrian pilgrims to Navsari. WZOTF will manage and maintain the new building for which the Atash Behram Trust will pay an annual token sum of Rs 1,000 to them.
Tamboly noted in a communication to Parsiana that "when the Atash Behram trustees requested us to use our good offices to preserve (its) sanctity and privacy, we responded…With the full support and backing of the trustees of Hong Kong anjuman, the issue was expeditiously resolved.”