Chennai: Amid a vociferous campaign demanding temples be freed from government control, Tamil Nadu’s Hindu, Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department has cleared lands, plots, and buildings, belonging to various temples, worth Rs 5,700 crore from encroachments since 2021.
Data shared by the Tamil Nadu government said 6,071 acres of land across the state have been recovered from encroachers and handed over to the respective temples that owned them originally.
Plots measuring 5.04 lakh square feet, and buildings measuring 5.04 lakh square feet have also been recovered from various individuals or groups since Chief Minister M K Stalin-led dispensation came to power on May 7, 2021.
The combined value of the properties recovered so far is Rs 5,718 crore.
“After retrieving the land or property from encroachers, we erect a fence around the premise and install a board with details of the land and to which temples it belongs,” HR&CE minister P K Sekarbabu told DH.
Since May 2021, a whopping Rs 600 crore has been collected as rent or lease amount from users who now occupy the recovered properties after getting allotment in auctions that are held in a “transparent manner,” he added.
Sekarbabu said the entire amount has gone to the temple which owns these lands, and the government doesn’t get involved in financial transactions.
The minister said 1.67 lakh of the total 4.78 lakh acres of land owned by temples that are under the control of HR&CE have been 3D-mapped as part of the efforts to prepare a digital land resources database.
“After mapping them digitally, we erect a stone in the land mentioning that it belongs to HR & CE department and install a board with every detail of the land and its owner (the respective temple),” Sekarbabu added.
The drive to retrieve encroached lands and the ambitious plan to 3D-map them were launched in 2021 and 2022 to bring transparency in the functioning of the department and bust a slew of campaigns that want temples to be freed of government control.
Though ‘Free TN temples’ campaign was launched by yoga guru Jaggi Vasudev ahead of the 2021 assembly polls, it is now the pet topic of the BJP in Tamil Nadu with the party’s state unit chief K Annamalai promising to abolish the HR&CE department if his party was voted to power in the state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi too joined his party in alleging that temples are being captured and looted through a conspiracy involving State governments in South India during an election rally in Telangana in 2023.
The HR&CE’s drive is not just an administrative process but also a political move by Chief Minister M K Stalin whose party, DMK, is often accused of being “anti-Hindu.”
The concerted efforts by the DMK also comes at a time a slew of petitions regarding “mismanagement of temples” under HR&CE are being heard by the Madras High Court.
As many as 44,121 temples in Tamil Nadu come under HR&CE department which manages and controls them.