VIJAYAWADA: The State government has issued an order setting up the Andhra Pradesh Dharmika Parishad with 21 members. Speaking to the media at the Interim Government Complex in Velagapudi on Tuesday, Deputy Chief Minister Kottu Satyanarayana said that the Endowments Minister will be the chairman and Endowments Commissioner will be the member-secretary of the Dharmika Parishad. Principal Secretary (Revenue) and 18 others will be its members.
The Dharmika Parishad, he said, has special powers. The State government is empowered to form trust boards for the temples with an income less than Rs 25 lakh and above Rs 1 crore. Likewise, trust boards of temples with income ranging between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 1 crore will be set up by the Dharmika Parishad. It has power to take steps to prevent corruption and irregularities in the temples and take action against the abbots who commit corruption and irregularities and appoint someone else in their place. Similarly, it also has power to extend the lease of the lands and properties of the endowments department beyond 11 years, the Endowments minister said.
CGF panel
Satyanarayana further said that the state government issued GO 572 on Tuesday, including three more members in the Common Good Fund (CGF)Committee. It had four members Endowments Minister (chairman), Endowments Commissioner (secretary and treasurer), Principal Secretary (Revenue) and Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) executive officer.
The government has appointed Kaliki Kodanda Ramireddy from Nellore district, Malireddy Venkata Apparao from Visakhapatnam district, G Yandada and Karri Bhaskara Rao from Tadepalligudem of West Godavari district as members of the committee, taking the number of members in the panel to seven. The committee is working to take steps for the development of temples under its jurisdiction and bring many temples under the Dhupa Deepa Naivedya scheme.
Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had directed officials to implement Dhupa Deepa Naivedya scheme without restriction to the eligible temples. Steps are being taken to bring at least one temple in every village under the scheme. As many as 1,500 temples in the State are covered under the scheme and another 3,500 applications have been received. The officials have examined 2,346 applications and 2,200 were found eligible.
Pending cases
Satynarayana said that around 4,708 cases were pending in the Endowment Tribunal for a long time and 722 cases were resolved so far. The local conditions were not conducive to solve the remaining cases and loopholes in the law were also an obstacle.
It has been decided to urge the High Court to allocate the necessary 8 Amins to resolve all the cases. If these eight more Amins are appointed by the High Court, all the cases will be resolved soon. Similarly, he said that a decision has been taken to set up an official website to monitor Endowment Tribunal cases from time to time.
Online services
The Deputy Chief Minister said that steps are being taken to provide all kinds of services online in all the major temples of the State, on the lines of TTD. It has already been implemented in Srisailam temple and steps are being taken to implement the system in all major temples.
Recently, the Chief Minister has directed that all the temples under the department should use only organic agricultural products for preparing prasadams. Already, the TTD has started procuring organic products and steps are being taken to implement it in other temples. Organic agricultural produce will be procured through AP Markfed.