Visakhapatnam: Two new entities COME under Endowments Department

Visakhapatnam: In a step towards bringing in transparency in the administration and working towards development, the State government has decided to add some new the entities to the endowments department.

Within a period of one week, the famous Sri Vaibhava Venkateswara Swamy temple at NGGO's Colony, Murali Nagar, and an age-old orphanage Prema Samajam Trust, housed at Dabagardens, have recently been merged with the department.

Two Executive Officers have been appointed for both the temple and the trust.

The foundation stone for Sri Vaibhava Venkateswara Swamy shrine was laid in 1999. Ever since the completion of the temple's construction by 2002, the shrine has been attracting thousands of devotees from across North Andhra. The 1.04-acre of land, allotted for the place of worship by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), was donated by P Ramanamma. "The site was left vacant for a long time which resulted in encroachments. Encroachers also made an attempt to dispose of the site by presenting forged documents. That's when we carried out a protest to protect the land and later formed a 14-member committee to build Lord Balaji temple in the same site in order to keep the encroachers away," recalls PB Bangaraju, founder-member and former chairman of the temple.

During weekends and holidays, the six-and-a-half feet long deity at the temple draws 3,000 to 4,000 devotees. In addition to taking care of the temple development, the committee also built an 'Annadanam' complex in the premises to accommodate 2,000 devotees per batch.

Those who paid repeated visits to the shrine have donated gold and silver ornaments to Lord Venkateswara, including 'Sarvanga Vajra Kavacham', gold and silver jewellery and accessories. The temple now falls under the ambit of the Endowments Department. "In times of the pandemic, 'Ekaantaseva' is being carried out at the temple. But, with the coronavirus pandemic still raging, 'Dasara Mahotsavalu' will be confined to a three-day celebration, following Covid-19 protocols," says Bandaru Prasad, EO of the temple.

In another major decision, the State government has freed Prema Samajam from the trust control and merged it with the Endowments Department. Prema Samajam that dates back to the pre-Independence era was founded by M Satyanarayana in 1930 and the orphanage was registered as a trust 11 years later.

So far, the trust members hosted Hindu cultural programmes and skill development courses apart from taking care of the Gosala and the inmates of the samajam. The trust has 75 acres of land located at various places. Of them, many were given on lease.

However, issues like misuse of funds and lack of transparency in maintaining the trust started cropping up since 2007. Based on the reports submitted by the vigilance and the endowments departments, the trust has finally been handed over to the latter. K Sirisha has been appointed as the EO of the trust.

In future, the endowments department will monitor the activities carried out by both the temple as well as the trust.