AP move for hereditary archaka system lauded

Chilkuru: Dr MV Soundararajan, the convener of Temples Protection Movement, thanked the AP government for clearing the path to restore the status of hereditary archakas system, here on Tuesday.

"We all know that the draconian Act 30/87 – Hindu Religious Endowments Act -- was enacted following the recommendations of Challa Kondaiah Commission, leading to large-scale threat to Hinduism and Hindu religious institutions. The legislation abolished basic Hindu religious rights to archakas and other devotees to perform devotional services to lords of various temples crippling them socially and economically.

It took over 20 years to obtain political consensus, and the act was amended by Govt of AP in 2007 during the government of YS Rajasekhar Reddy, who got consensus among all political parties and passed the bill unanimously in both the houses, which is known as 33/2007 act," he said.

Dr MV Soundararajan, CS Rangarajan and chief priest of Balaji temple thanked AP Minister of Endowments Vellampalli Srinivas, who was always reassuring archakas, IYR Krishna Rao, former chief secretary, who initiated the process of the service rules for hereditary archakas, Principal Secretary (Rev) Endowments Manmohan Singh and AP Chief Secretary LV Subramaniam. The government headed by YS Jagan is treading the welfare path in the case of archakas of AP temples. Such positive measures will help protecting our 'dharma' through the protection of the temple system, they said.