Plan to retrieve temple lands worth Rs 1k cr this year

Replying to the debate on demand for grants for his department in the Assembly, HR&CE Minister PK Sekar Babu said the department has planned to retrieve Rs 1,000 worth land before the end of the current calendar year.

Stating that temple land worth Rs 641 crore was retrieved in the 120 days of the DMK regime led by Chief Minister MK Stalin, he said the previous AIADMK regime had managed to retrieve land worth only Rs 3,000 crore in 10 years, but the incumbent regime has managed to secure Rs 641 crore worth land in just 120 days.

“Encroachments have been evicted in 203 acres of cultivable lands, 170.2105 grounds of vacant plots, 1.811 grounds of buildings, 15.597 grounds of temple tank bunds and restored to the temple concerned. It is estimated that the properties are worth Rs 641.01 crore,” said Sekar Babu, in the policy note.

Alleging that during the implementation of the Updating Registry (UDR) Scheme, the land belonging to religious institutions were wrongly transferred to individuals in the previous AIADMK regime, Babu said that two district revenue officers have been posted as special officers one each at Madurai and Coimbatore to rectify the mistakes.

The DMK government, from May 7 to August 15, retrieved 301.44 acres of land belonging to 60 temples. Reconciliation with computerised land documents resulted in the restoration of further 11.12 acres, the Minister added.

Proposing to resume the scheme of monetizing the gold donated by pilgrims to temples, the Minister said the AIADMK regime had put the scheme on cold storage.