AP’s temple mission may face hurdles

Endowments officials feel the move is to use temple funds for infrastructure development

Hyderabad: It seems that the Andhra Pradesh government's mission to give boost to temple tourism to ensure that it contributes to the State’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is likely to face legal hurdles.

According to Endowment officials, who are privy to the new initiatives of the State government, “The issue of temple conservation had not come up during any of the meetings that were held after the AP government came to power. Diverting temple lands under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode is more to give a boost to the revenues to create infrastructure and other facilities in the temple towns which would lead to creating concrete jungles.”

Chandrasekhar from the Rural Education on Conservation of Temples, (REACH), which has been engaged in creating awareness on temple conservation in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu said, “The endowment departments have eyes more on the Hundi's than preserving the ancient temples.” Experts say this has becomes clear from the fact that the government which is contemplating to start engineering colleges with temple funds has no proposal of starting any branch of conservation science or technology. A senior official also confirmed this saying that the proposed engineering colleges would be more or less like any other exiting engineering colleges. The Archaeological Survey of India, Director (Science), Dehradun, KS Rana told The Hans India that if any “Endowment Department comes up with starting conservation science or technology, definitely it would help in adding up the much needed human capital in the field.”

Stressing the importance of the conservation of temples, Head of the Temple and Religious Architecture Division of The Hindu Temple Architects, Madurai, KLY Shashidharan, said, “Conservation and renovation have been carried out consulting hereditary Stapatis (Traditional Temple Engineers), who are known for their knowledge of temple designing and materials usage.”

“But, the hereditary system of employment has been done away in the AP, endowment engineers carrying out repairs at several temples in the State with concrete, mosaic and glazed tiles,” Chandrasekhar said.