Over 20,000 acres of temple lands encroached in Telangana

Hyderabad : With huge tracts of Endowment lands under encroachment, Endowments Minister A Indra Karan Reddy has directed the officials to crack the whip on encroachers.

“Act tough on encroachers. Do not spare the encroachers, however, influential they may be,” Endowments Minister A Indra Karan Reddy told the officials on Monday.

Nearly 20,124.08 acres of endowments lands are under encroachment in the State.

The minister wanted the officials to deal sternly with those, who gave the endowment lands on sub-lease.

According to sources, the lessees are taking the temple lands at throwaway prices and in turn were giving them on sub-lease at market prices, resulting in huge revenue loss to the Endowments department.

The officials are now checking the rental value of their lands and reviewing the prices to get good revenue.

Accordingly, the officials are now planning to erect fencing around the temple lands and putting up notice boards stating that those lands belonged to the Endowments Department.

Endowments lands worth Rs 3 crore was leased out to private persons some 50 years.

The original lessee gave it on sub-lease to others. The department has decided to vacate the lessee and take back the land. But, the lessee approached the court and the department could not take it back.

According to the latest information available with the Endowments Department, the Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions in the State possess landed property to an extent of 87,235.39 acres.

These lands are located in urban and rural areas, which included forest lands too.  The lands under utilisation or in the possession of Archakas are 2,458.05 acres.

The lands under the lease are 21,238.26 acres. The extent of lands under encroachments are 20,124.08 acres. The lands covered under the Land Acquisition Act are 2,122.08 acres. The other types of lands include some 19,692.37 acres.

Source : New Indian Express