HR&CE department retrieves temple assets worth Rs 5,137 crore in 2 years

CHENNAI: In last 25 months, the state government has retrieved more than Rs 5,137 crore worth temple properties, including land and commercial complexes.

The department of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) launched a special drive to identify and retrieve temple properties from encroachers.

It was aimed to convert the retrieved temple properties into revenue generating sources to enhance facilities for devotees and fund temples getting less patronage.

There are a total of 44,291 religious institutions, including 36,627 temples, have 4.75 lakh acre of land and around 55,000 buildings, including shops, marriage halls and commercial buildings.

The department intensified the special drive after the authorities unearthed a mismatch of nearly 50,000 acres of land when compared to the temple records between fiscal year 1989-1990 and 2019-2020. Following this, the officials roped in licensed surveyors, besides using a differentially global position system (DGPS) and also rovers during the on-site verification.

So far, the authorities have retrieved 5,534 acres of land in 20 regions.

During the same period, 1,293 grounds of land, including 946 grounds of land, 201 grounds of commercial buildings have been retrieved. The properties have been retrieved from 5,031 encroachers, according to the officials. Majority of the temple properties have been retrieved from Kancheepuram region, which has a total of 23 temples, said a source and pointed out that Rs 1,712 crore worth of the property was retrieved from the region.

It was followed by Chennai region I and II where Rs 418 crore and Rs 563 crore worth properties were retrieved respectively.

“The lands are under encroachment for more than a decade. The encroachers continue to enjoy the property without paying rent and penalties. Following direction from the government to go hard on the encroachers, we have taken stern measures. It is paying off,” said a source in the department.