Hyderabad: Special drive to clear encroachments in temple lands from Feb 17

Hyderabad: Telangana government is taking up a special drive for verification of all the endowment lands and clearing off all the encroachments from February 17 to March 31 in the State.

According to a senior official, there department has initiated steps to safeguard the temple lands in the State. The official said that there was no accumulated data belonging to temple lands available. The temples in districts have lands and other assets attached and during the drive, the data would be collected, said the official.

During the special drive, all the protection measures like fencing of lands would also be taken up. The department has appealed to the encroachers of the lands to immediately hand over the land to the concerned temple authorities as it was unlawful but also a sin.

The encroachers who continue to occupy endowments land would face criminal action, said the Endowments Commissioner Anil Kumar. The authorities during a drive had recently found out that about 2,600 acres of endowment lands were encroached in Hyderabad and erstwhile Rangareddy district.

Sources said that the officials found out many land details by virtue of the translation of the land records from Urdu to English. There are many temple lands in the heart of the city and the value would be in crores, said the official.

Based on the success of the drive in the city, the Endowments Minister A Indrakaran Reddy said that the drive would be extended in other districts too. He had directed the officials to reclaim the endowments properties from encroachers with the help of police and revenue officials.

Government wants to have an idea the extent of properties the temples under the department have and take up protection of these properties, the official said.

During the drive, the officials would take over the encroached lands and take up fencing and if the encroachers construct houses, the authorities would get the power and drinking water supplies disconnected.