Minister for Religious Endowment and Fisheries Kota Srinivas Poojary has directed the district administration to verify the audit report of temples under the Department of Religious Endowment in Dharwad district.
Mr. Poojary issued this direction at a review meeting of the department when he was told that no temple maintained by the department falls under A and B category in the district. The Minister was taken by surprise when the officials revealed this information when he wanted to know the reasons for the poor collection of donations in temples.
Mr. Poojary said that the department has categorised the temples run by the department into A, B and C grades depending on the donations collected in them. Those temples that have a revenue of above ₹ 25 lakh annually are considered A grade, while those with collections above ₹ 5 lakh and below ₹ 25 lakh come in B and those with less than ₹ 5 lakh revenue are tagged as C. Though there are 938 temples under the Muzrai Department in Dharwad district, none of them are listed in either A or B grade, he said. He has directed the Deputy Commissioner to verify the audit report of these temples and submit a report to the government soon. The Minister said that his department has issued orders to set up Zilla Dharmika Parishat to formulate plans to develop and upgrade the temples run by the department. But, Dharwad district is yet to form this committee. The Deputy Commissioner should take the lead in setting up this committee, he said. It is the duty of the tahsildar to open hundis in Muzrai Department temples every month, count the offerings and deposit them in banks every month, the Minister said.
He asked the officials to see that a minimum of 200 temples of the total 938 temples feature in B grade in the next six months. On the recruitment of staff to the Muzrai Department, the Minister said that the department had sought to recruit 600 staff for the department and the Finance Department has given its nod. Very soon, the recruitment process will be initiated, he added.
Fisheries
The officials of the Fisheries Department during the progress review said that there are 128 department tanks, 439 tanks owned by the gram panchayats and one reservoir in the district. A total of 10 registered co-operative fisheries societies are active in the district. This year, Dharwad district has produced 2,552 tonnes of fish. Nearly 49 lakh fingerlings got from Hosapete and Savadatti were released into the tanks. Not satisfactory with the figures, the Minister asked the officials to release additional one crore fingerlings into the tanks, he said.
