Focus on protection of temple properties

Visakhapatnam: Vizag topped the 23 districts in the two States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana by including details pertaining to 21,394 acres of temple lands in the district in the official Gazette thus covering 85.86 per cent of total lands.

All the details have been uploaded in the revenue records of the endowments department. This will help in preventing further registration of temple lands.

Assistant Commissioner of Endowments Pushpa Varshan, who has embarked on protection of temple lands, has been concentrating on streamlining total administration as well as in temples with main focus on getting temple lands back from the clutches of encroachers legally.

However, the unfortunate thing was that most of the endowments lands have no details in revenue records though the department of endowments has the land details. Pushpa Vardhan, who recently attended a high-level meeting convened by the Endowments Commissioner in Hyderabad, told The Hans India on Tuesday that majority of temple lands in the district were protected. Efforts are on to protect the remaining temple lands.

Asked about the Uttarandhra Archaka Sangham and Navyandhra Pradesh Archaka Sangham demanding wages to all the temple priests, the Assistant Commissioner felt that participation in dharnas or raising slogans would not solve the issue unless proper representation was submitted to the department officials.

He informed that Dhoopa Deepa Naivedyam Scheme (DDNS) was not properly implemented earlier and now it was being assessed on the status of payment of wages to the priests and the revenue sources of temples.

The department is paying wages of Rs 5,000 per month to archakas of 16 temples in the district from February this year and orders were passed recently extending the facility to eight more eligible archakas.

The officer said orders for wages to 12 others were also received from the Endowments Commissioner under Archakas and Other Employees’ Remuneration Scheme.

"Still there is a pendency of 36 applications due to non-submission of Aadhaar copy, lack of proper appointment orders and having accounts in banks other than Andhra Bank. Having an account in Andhra Bank will help the process go smoothly," he explained.

Of the total 976 temples in the district, only 146 are under the administration of Endowments and the remaining under the private administration.

The Assistant Commissioner appealed to the managements of private temples to see that such temples generate revenue by organising festivals or spiritual programmes, by introducing darshan tickets, sale of prasadams and also through hundi collection.

He asked the temple priests seeking wages to forward their applications by enclosing copies of Aadhaar Card, Andhra Bank account, any ID proof with two photos to the Endowments Inspector of the revenue division concerned, marking a copy to the Assistant Commissioner.