Hindu religious and charitable endowments officials in spot over name transfer

Chennai: Hindu religious and charitable endowments department officials are in trouble for allegedly demanding bribe from those residing in Marundeeswarar temple property at Tiruvanmiyur.
After three years of mental trauma and agony running behind officials for name transfer of a temple-leased property, an irked resident R. Viswanathan had registered a complaint with the department seeking action against erring officials.

Viswanathan who had also filed an RTI application, seeking the reason for delaying the name transfer had now gone to the appellate authority seeking action for the delay in responding to the application for the past three months.“The local HR and CE officials demand a cut for tr-ansferring the names of lease that is allowed as per the government orders. There is no transparency in name transfers,” alleged Viswanathan adding that more than 20 families wanted the rental agreements to be transferred in their names.

According to sources, the complaint had now reached the HR& CE Commissioner M. Veerashanmugha Moni. The official explained there was no need to bribe officials. He had advised a few beneficiaries of the temple lease land to follow only the government order and instructions.When contacted, a local HR and CE official said there were vested interests trying to loot the temple property. There were cases where beneficiaries did not pay their rent.

There were defaulters, people who had sub-let the property violating norms. Whenever action was taken against the violators, allegations were leveled against us. There is a procedure for name transfer and there were conditions to be followed.“There is a provision for collecting donation from name transfer applicants. This donation gets credited to the department. At times, temple lessees mistake donations as bribe, the official said.