Special task force to protect temple lands

​Hyderabad: The cabinet subcommittee, which was formed to strengthen the Endowments department and examine the proposal of paying the salaries of Archakas through the treasury, decided to set up a special task force to protect temple lands.

Comprising of Ministers Indrakaran Reddy, Naini Narasimha Reddy, T Nageswara Rao, T Srinivas Yadav and J Krishna Rao, the sub-committee which met on Friday decided that a task force would be set up comprising officials from endowments, revenue, town planning and police departments to protect the temple lands within GHMC limits.

The committee directed the officials to ensure that temple lands are not encroached upon and also find ways to generate revenue through sale of these lands. It also decided to extend the Dhoopa Deepa Naivedhyam scheme to some more temples apart from the existing 1,800 temples.

The temple priests are currently being provided with an honorarium of Rs 6,000 every month under the scheme. “There is a demand for increase of the temples under the scheme from the people and other public representatives,” said the Minister.

The committee also decided to upgrade the temples in line with their incomes and asked officials to prepare guidelines on this.