How Hindu temples suffer under Government control

How Hindu temples suffer under Government control

Once taken over, such Hindu Institutions would be quickly converted as extensions of the Government Department of Hindu Religious Endowments and permanently remain under the control of the Government. 

The temple staff including priests would play second fiddle to the deity and would primarily be made to wait on the ignoramus but pompous political goons and on the arrogant and corrupt Babus.

To begin with, Government would appropriate one-sixth of the gross income of the temple as “administrative” fees. 

Another 2/5th of the gross income would be spent on staff salaries (But Archakas who do the poojas would be paid no salaries or peanuts as salaries). 

Thus 56% of the temple’s gross revenue straightway goes for administration expenses. In large temples like Pazhani Temple, less than 2% of the temple income is utilised for poojas and rituals.


Volunteers and devotees of the temples would be chased away, so that more people can be appointed as “staff” by the Government. Such appointments are ‘Capital Gains’ for the party in power and for the Babus.


Funds would be then diverted from temples having good and reasonable revenues to the Commissioner’s Common Good Fund, the Chief Minister’s Annadhanam Scheme, Chief Minister’s free wedding schemes, etc. which have nothing to do with the respective temples’ tenets and ordained charities but are designed to serve vote-bank politics.


Ghosalas and Veda Patasalas and Agama Patasalas attached to the temples would be systematically closed. Funds from specific endowments would be diverted for other purposes.

Government would appoint its Babus as “Fit Persons” instead of Trustees and Trust Boards and thus Temples would become fully under its control.

Government Officials’ greed in awarding contracts would result in indiscriminate “renovations” of temples. 

Polished tiles and slabs would be laid instead of ancient granite flooring. Ancient mandaps would be demolished. 

Incongruous cement monstrosities would take avatars as new mandaps. Ancient Inscriptions would be either sand-blasted or uprooted. Irreplaceable paintings would be painted-over by charlatans. 

Icons and sculptures would be “damaged” so that they can be replaced and the originals smuggled out.

There will be no external audit for the temple expenses. There will no audit at all for renovation and consecration expenses.

Audit objections piled up from 1982 to 2010 for Tamil Nadu temples totalled a massive 7,39,000 objections. Most of the officials against whom such audit objections are pending are long retired and many of them even dead.

There will be systematic alienation and encroachment of immovable properties of the Hindu temples and their endowments. Between 1986 and 2005 Tamil Nadu temples simply ‘lost’ 47,000 acres of land. 

Currently more than 10 million square feet of valuable sites belonging to Hindu Temples in Tamil Nadu are under encroachment.


Srirangam Ranganathaswamy Temple, which is the favourite worshipping place of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, has a performance record 0.5% collection of the due income. That is, 99.5% of the rentals are uncollected.

Less than two per cent of the due income of the temples is realised by the Tamil Nadu HR & CE Department from Hindu temple and endowment properties. 

Tamil Nadu Hindus suffer a loss of Rs.5,000 to 6,000 crores annually due to this.


Put in proper perspective, this huge amount can help Hindus construct State of the Art hospitals and medical colleges in all Tamil Nadu districts, engineering colleges that rival IITs, fully equipped schools in every Taluk, scholarships to half a million students, free medical treatment to half a million needy Hindus, run Ghosalas, publish 100s of thousands of books – year after year.....//

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