Mismanagement of Hindu temples, TN. .quora.com/ |
No other Indian states misuse or abuse Hindu temples, their lands and properties as much as the Tamil Nadu government does. Being under the control of the state agency, HR & CE, the most corruptive one, you can imagine what kind of administration you can expect from the officials appointed by the state government. Mismanagement of temple income and temple prosperities has been on the increase manifold in the last 5 to 6 years. Temple income never goes to the maintenance of respective temple or repair and restoration of temples in ruins. Media reports say that their is no publicized compulsory auditing report of temple income from Hundial collection, special darshan collections, buildings or agricultural lands. Nor can they respond if like minded citizens demand their annual auditing statement. Can you imagine countless senior officials have corporate style AC rooms and expensive cars to take care of the temples. The large rooms are all built on the historical temple premises (Srirangam Ranganathar temple, Arunachaleswar temple, Thiruvannamalai), in violation of heritage acts with no proper permission, thus throwing to the wind the age old temple traditions and temple functions.
Quite disgusted and enraged, many Hindu groups have approached the Courts of Law to free the temples from the claws of government control primarily because of too much intrusion from local netas who want to make fast buck. Though same conditions prevail in other states, mismanagement of temple finances is more visible in Tamil Nadu than other states. The bazaars with numerous shops close to the entrance gopuram/tower inside and outside the temple are money spinners and the netas have a stake in them; no doubt, they make a bundle out of them without any sweat by way of subletting the auctioned shops..
More than illegal encroachment of temple properties, etc what is quite disturbing is the leased temple lands and the annual rent derived from them. For example if an agriculture land is given on lease seldom do the lessees pay the 40% yield due to the temple. With over 3 lakh acres of agriculture land with the Hindu endowment board, if there is just 5% encroachment of resources, just calculate the loss incurred by the temples. The crux of the matter is the lease holders are relatives of netas, endowment board members, its staff and benamies of party politicians in power or other netas . For ordinary citizens or villagers, it is impossible to break the vicious circle Lands which are in close proximity with towns and commercial values are the favorite of the politicians who have contacts with powerful politicians. They are known to acquire prime temple lands at a cheap rate, far below the guideline value in collusion with corrupt officials in the registrar's office. it is mentioned a few acres of Madurai Meenakshi temple lands in a prime area fell into the hand of a neta at a rock bottom price. Where there is dereliction of duty on the part of officials, dishonesty and corruption openly exist without any inhibition you can expect erosion of morality in the administrative machinery which is a tool in the hands of netas.
everydaypower.com |
TN temple lands. .reddit.com |
HR & CE, the government agency manages about 38,658 Hindu and 17 Jain religious institutions and about 4.78 lakh acres of temple lands dotting the state, So far, nearly 96,437.11 acres of land has been surveyed in 20 regions under the department. Though nearly 50,000 acres of land was surveyed in June, the progress was rather slow when the Northeast Monsoon set in by October-end. They are using the modern survey technologies -Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) for the survey of lands and digitization of records. The survey of the remaining 3.5 lakh acres of temple lands spread across the state will be over soon.
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TN Protection of temple lands lawstreet.co |
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Controlling encroachments. indiatimes.com/ |
Parcels of temple land in Tamil Nadu worth thousands of crores of rupees will continue to remain in God’s possession, as the Madras high court on Friday stayed the operation of a controversial government order that proposed to cede the encroachers.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/72192009.cms?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvmrXoGb8s0