TTD chairman YV Subba Reddy clarifies on sale of properties, says they are not useful

TTD Chairman YV Subba Reddy said that the 50 properties which were to be sold by public auction in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are of no use for the state. "The TTD Board has the powers to sell and lease the temple property if it can be beneficial to TTD through GO MS No. 311 Revenue (Endowments), dated 09-04-1990 Rule-165, Chapter 22," YV Subba Reddy said. He said the government has nothing to do with the decisions of the board.

The sale of temple properties has been in operation since 1974. Recall that as of 2014, 129 properties were sold through public auction. At the time when Chadalawada Krishnamurthy was the chairman of TTD, the governing body's under resolution no 84 has sold the properties that no useful to temple on 28-07-2015. A Subcommittee has been appointed to look into the possibilities of selling TTD assets and selling them through public auction dated 28-07-2015. The members of the then governing body, G. Bhanu Prakash Reddy, J. Shekhar, DP Anantha, Ella Sucharitha and Sandra Venkata Veeraiah have been appointed as members.

According to the report of the committee, the ruling council chaired by Chadalawada Krishnamurthy approved the sale of 50 non-performing assets identified by the sub-committee by Resolution No. 253 dated 30-01-2016. As a result of this decision, the temple staff has collected the details of the lands from sub registrar's office records and the open market values of 17 properties in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh, 9 in urban areas and 23 in rural areas of Tamil Nadu.

He said the auction was exempted from proceedings for one asset as there was a court case relating to a property. It was also included in the auction list, as there was a risk of grabbing. The value of 50 intangible assets is Rs.23.92 crores.