Temples add Rs 208.75 crore to state coffers in one year
Sivakumar B
Chennai:
The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department has earned `208.75 crore as income by leasing out temple land and buildings in 2014-15.This is the department' largest earning in a year.
In the last four years put together, the department earned `422.05 crore. Officials attributed the record earnings to removal of encroachments and also fixing of fair rent on several buildings and land occupied by tenants for several generations.
“Many tenants occupying agricultural land as well as land and buildings in urban areas were not paying fair rent fixed by the department and these were settled by revenue courts,“ said a senior officer, seeking anonymity . The department also put up boards on the premises of var ous temples with names of he tenants, who have not paid rent, along with their address and extent of land occupied he said.
The department has 22,600 building sites and 33,665 va cant plots of land which had been leased out to various in dividuals and companies “Besides donations and hund collections, revenue also comes from sale of land to de partments like highways for widening of road or to metro rail authorities for construc ion of stations or laying of a railway line,“ said the officer For sale of land, the govern ment has to issue an order af ter which the land is sold following the purchaser depositing the market rate, he said.
The department set up rev enue courts in Thanjavur, Trichy , Mayiladuthurai, Tiruvarur, Cuddalore, Madurai, Lalgudi, Mannargudi, Nagapattinam and Tirunelveli as well as three additional temporary courts. “The revenue courts have settled 7,503 out of 25,746 cases on land-related issues. The courts ordered retrieval of `12.88 crore and of this `1.68 crore has been collected in 2014-15,“ he said.
Several temples have become rich after revenue officials and special officers transferred land back in the name of temples. “In the last four years, pattas of 3,405.22 acres belonging to 549 temples were restored. Last year alone, 614.85 acres belonging to 192 temples were restored,“ he said.
