Muzrai Minister Shashikala Jolle on Thursday said the government is still studying the proposal to free Hindu temples from state control.
She said this after a delegation of priests gave her a memorandum urging the government to drop the idea of freeing up Hindu temples.
“Freeing up temples is something we’re still studying,” Jolle told reporters.
“We’re looking at what other states have done. I have discussed this with the chief minister also,” she said.
In December, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced in Hubballi that his government will draft a law to free Hindu temples from state control, a long-pending demand of the Sangh Parivar.
Bommai had said that the law will be drafted before the budget session.
A section of priests, however, is against the idea.
“There will be problems if temples are freed. Temples got land from erstwhile kings and there are several properties worth lakhs. Who will protect them? The government wants to form a trust. But, will that trust look after temples,” K S N Dikshith, chief organising secretary of Akhila Karnataka Hindu Temples’ Priests Federation, said.
Karnataka has 34,563 temples under the Muzrai department. Of them, 205 are in the ‘A’ category with an annual revenue of over Rs 25 lakh. There are 139 temples in the ‘B’ category (between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 25 lakh). The remaining 34,219 temples are in the ‘C’ category.
Temples in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ categories earned Rs 1,383.63 crore between 2018 and 2020.
The federation also urged the minister to withdraw the requirement of priests to retire at 60 years and hike the monthly tasdik amount from Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000. “We’ve been asking for a hike for four years,” Dikshith said.
Jolle said a proposal hiking the tasdik amount is ready.
“Our government is in favour of the priests. The demand to hike tasdik is valid. I am taking this to the CM soon,” she said.
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