The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) department, Tamil Nadu government have whooping 4.75 lakh acres of land and more than 55,000 buildings, including marriage halls, and shops in the major urban areas of town and cities, besides villages.Constitutionally, they can only administer the temples and check irregularities in the administration and has no rights either to interfere in the religious activities or collect revenue from temple lands and use it for non-religious purposes. In this respect some ligation is going on between HR&CE and various groups over many issues related to temple lands, temple gold jewelry, hundial collections donated by the public, financial mismanagement, etc.
HR&CE's monopoly in the control of Hindu temples across the state continues unabated . However, through their sustained efforts they are recovering properties worth several hundreds crores of rupees for reasons that that were encroached upon for decades and for nonpayment of agreed rent due to the temple.
The HR&CE recovered the following temple properties in the state of Tamil Nadu:
The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department in 2021 retrieved a total of 79.05 acres of temple lands valued at Rs 590 crore across the State in a short period after DMK took over the government.
In 2021 the HR&CE officials in Villivakkam, Chennai legally took action by sealings 24 shops on the temple land measuring 9,852 sq. ft. on West Mada Street, Reddy Street, Raja Street and Adhinaidu Street. The land worth Rs.16 crore is owned by the Agastheeswarar temple. Reason: The eviction was done through court orders for non-payment of rent by the tenants totalling Rs. 1.20 crore. Sub-letting was yet another breach of tenancy act by the main tenants. The two temple properties are worth ₹20 crores.
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| timesofindia.indiatimes.com |
In September 2021 HR&CE retrieved a big parcel of land worth Rs 276 crore belonging to the famous Kapaleeswarar temple, Mylapore, Chennai. The property - 46 grounds in the prime area of Mylapore had been used as a playground by P S Higher Secondary School, The 51 year lease taken in 1928 expired in 1079. The monthly rent was Rs 1,250. After the expiry of the lease the said land was under dispute. In 2012 the temple authorities fenced 30 grounds of the land with a 347 foot long high compound wall.
In 2022 HR&CE took possession of a building worth Rs. 4 crore with 2,000 sq ft built up area belonging to Adikesavaperumal temple in Kothawalchavady,Chennai for reasons of non-payment of rent for a long time.
In March 2022 High Court, Chennai ordered de-sealing of Mylapore Club premises, a non-profit organization situated on the Kapaleeswarar Temple land - 42 acres of land on lease from 1901 to 2000. presently the club is negotiating with the temple authority for fair rent as it is not a commercial venture.
In March 2022 HR & CE took back the control of lands worth Rs 50 crore belonging to Siddeshwara temple in Kancheepuram, temple land worth Rs 12 crore near Oddanchatram in Dindigul District, temple land valued at Rs 8 crore in Mylapore, Chennai city.
According to the HR & CE “they had completed surveying 30,000 acres of land and their daily target was to survey 500 acres of temple property /land. At the same time efforts are being made by them to collect pending rent more than Rs 113 crore from the tenants. Their legal action in the Court of Law of rent recovery comes under the purview of the provision of 79 ( c ) of the Revenue Recovery Act with respect to the defaulters. As for pending rent from the tenants/ leaseholders totalling Rs. 2390 crore they plan to collect Rs. 500 crore plus crore first at the earliest and then recover Rs. 25 crore periodically. They succeeded recovering Rs113 cr so far.
According to HR & CE' booklet released in the Secretariat out of 4.78 lakh acres of temple lands, several hundreds were recovered in one year period. The recovery of temple owned lands by the state agency began in earnest with the famous Vadapalani Murugan temples, Chennai whose land was worth Rs 250 crore. The booklet has listed the overall success of the department with respect to retrieval of temples in a short span of one year.
The state Hindu religious and charitable endowments recently recovered several hundreds of land from the encroachers and the Hindu religious heads and groups that are formed to to save the Hindu temples are not happy about the HR&CE's proposal to build commercial complexes and marriage halls worth crores of rupees as part of revenue generation in order to maintain the temple with the income from the proposed complex. However, for many years till now, there have been many complaints that the revenue earned from these temples and its properties are not being utilised for the religious purposes.
Justice Mahadevan said that the temple is not only a source of ancient culture but also stands as a symbol of pride and knowledge of the ancient people in arts, science, sculpture. Temples promote spiritual knowledge and sustain cultural ethos of our land. The court also said that HR and CE Department should take steps to start construction of compound walls for the temples lands and should maintain a register with details of regarding financial aspects of temples and properties. The report should be submitted before an authority at regular intervals, the court said.(https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/temple-land-should-only-be-used-temple-functions-says-madras-hc-136932)
Tit-bits:
Construction of marriage halls and shopping complexes on temple lands:
The state Hindu religious and charitable endowments recently october 2021 and 2022 retrieved big parcels of prime properties worth 1030 crore in the pas three months alone in 2021 from encroachers, and said, efforts are being made to build commercial complexes in order to maintain the temple with the income from them; the initial investment will be Rs.200 crores!
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| Egmore, Chennai, Srinivasa perumal temple tamilnadu-favtourism.blogspot.com |
Plans are afoot to build an integrated commercial complex on the land belonging to 600 year old Egmore Srinivasa perumal temple. A sum of Rs. 50 crore is allotted for the complex on a plot covering 42000 sq ft on the Poonamallee High road near Kalpak Metro station.
Yet another commercial complex is coming up at an estimated cost of Rs.100 crore on the land belonging to Kancheepuram Ekambareswarar temple. The market value of the land in the prime location is about 470 crore.
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| Devi Karumariyaman temple,Thiruverkaduupload.wikimedia.org/ |
Devi Karumariyaman temple in Thiruverkadu
On the lands of Devi Karumariyaman temple in Thiruverkadu near Chennai, of Kalikambal temple, Hosur and of Vedapureeswarer temple, Thiruvethipuram Thiruvannamalai, HR&CE has a proposal to construct small commercial complex at a cost of Rs. 2 crore.
HR & CE, a wing of the TN Government has an impressive but colossal plan to build 22 marriage halls across the state on temple lands and Rs. 53 crore is allocated for this purpose. One such marriage hall will be built at a cost of Rs 5 crore at Thiruttani on the land owned by the Subramania swamy temple. The officials of HR&CE are of the view that these projects are taken by them on the Hindu temple lands as part of revenue generation and the income from the complexes will be to maintain the temple and its related religious activities, etc. Responding to the ban on the sale of the temple lands, in Sep 2021 the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department sought for a review of a 2021 order of the Tamil Nadu government, which banned sale of landed properties.
https://www.dtnext.in/tamilnadu/2022/05/17/478-lakh-acre-tn-temple-lands-recovered-in-1-year
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/89919973.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
https://thecommunemag.com/all-state-govt-depts-to-coordinate-for-recovering-temple-property-madras-hc/ Dec 2021
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