Temple authorities put off tender process

Bhadrachalam: In an abrupt move, the authorities of the famed Sita Ramachandra Swamy temple have decided to put off the tender process for outsourcing temple cottage services to private parties here on Monday. 

It may be mentioned here that a report titled ‘Move to privatise temple cottages invites public ire’ has been published on these columns on Monday. 

A notice put up on the noice board of the administration block of Sri Sita Ramachandra Swamy Devastanam in the morning said the tender process of cottage services of Rama Nilayam had been put off till further directions for technical reasons. The date for tender would be announced shortly by the Executive Officer of the temple, it said. 

As per the schedule, the tender was supposed to be conducted on Monday. However, severe resistance by Lord Rama devotees and appearing of the news in newspapers forced the temple officers to cancel the tender programme, according to our sources. The bidders who were interested to participate in the programme and came here had to return disappointed after seeing the notice board. 

A devotee of Lord Rama B Shanker Reddy said the temple officers had taken the right decision by cancelling the programme. He said, no other temple in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States were privatising cottages services.

The Endowment Department is maintaining cottages in all temples, he said. He appealed to the temple authorities not to commercialise temple activities, and to extend all services by temple officals, treating devtoees as guests and provide maximum service to them.