Deputy Chief Minister and Endowments Minister Kottu Satyanarayana. (Photo | Twitter, @VoteForKottu)
VIJAYAWADA: State Government embarked on an ambitious plan of not leaving even a single village without a temple. Disclosing it to mediapersons on Tuesday, deputy chief minister (Endowments) Kottu Satyanarayana said that another 1,465 temples are being constructed in addition to the 1,330 already under execution.
“Construction of another 200 temples will be taken up on the request of people’s representatives. Out of Rs 270 crore Common Good Funds (CGF), Rs 238.19 crore will be released for the purpose,” he added.
The minister who chaired the CGF Committee meeting said that the committee took up a few important decisions, including the construction of additional temples. “As per the directions of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, every measure is being initiated for propagating Hinduism and construction of temples in weaker sections colonies across the State is an important step in that direction,” he said.
Satyanarayana said that every temple would get Rs 10 lakh from TTD Srivani Trust and works of 978 temples taken up by endowment department were going at a brisk pace. He said that one assistant engineer has been entrusted 25 temples for supervising construction of the temples. The needed assistant engineers have been even appointed on outsourcing basis. Other temples are being constructed by NGOs.
He said that works pertaining to renovation of the temples worth Rs 68 crore under CGF and Deepa Doopa Naivediam in the temples have been taken up and tenders for the remaining works have been invited.
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Out of Rs 28 crore allocated in the budget for providing Rs 5,000 per month for every temple towards Deepa, Doopa, Naivedyam expenditure in the current fiscal, Rs 14.74 crore was spent. As of 2019, the scheme was implemented for 1,561 temples, which at present has been expanded to 5,000 temples, he said.
The endowment minister went on to say that to improve the revenues of Srisailam Temple devesthanam, the department decided to implement a new scheme for the proposed construction of satrams. It was decided to give 40 per cent revenue from these satrams to the devasthanams.
Further, it was decided to regularise various satrams constructed by different social communities in Srisailam in view of the complaints about its mismanagement, he added.
