Bhadrachalam: In the absence of transparency, devotees are questioning whether the donations being paid by them are reaching the treasury of Lord Sitaramachandra Swamy temple in Bhadrachalam.
As per the details, the cash donations to the Nityannadanam, Gosaala and other programmes is not less than Rs 3 to Rs 5 lakh per day. The temple employees give written receipts which do not reflect online.
There is no transparency in these transactions and many of the devotees, who donated to annadanam and other programmes, are complaining that they are not receiving any messages from the day they opted for annadanam and other rituals.
And since there is no answer from the temple authorities on the missing messages, devotees have their doubts about whether their donations have been deposited. There is no proper desk to address these problems.
A camp clerk of the temple allows his own people directly for darshan in the name of the executive officer. There are many complaints against these lower level employees about misusing power in the name of VIPs.
For example, the misuse of Rs 3,000 tickets during the divine wedding. According to details, the officials published 150 tickets valued at Rs 5,000 each.
These tickets are usually sold only to the VVIPs. They are generally bought by the revenue department to facilitate the Chief Minister and his men. Behind this sector, there is a place to seat 250 members, and the cost of each ticket is Rs 3,000.
These tickets are sold to the VIPs but revenue officials lift them and there are no details about how many Rs 3,000 tickets are sold, etc.
In case, the revenue officials placed the VIPs in the sector, then they should either collect the money from the VIPs or pay themselves. But all these transactions are conducted in the name of protocol, a word that is also trotted out not to reveal details.
But what really happens is that the relatives and friends of revenue and police department personnel occupy these seats without paying for the ticket.
As a result, the temple revenue through the sale of tickets has come down to Rs 1.14 crore from Rs 1.37 crore last year.
The Bhadradri collector should take care of all these irregularities because they are being done in the name of the government and the collector is the head in the district, pointed out a source.
B. Sankar Reddy, a devotee said, “The sentiment of the devotees will be hit if their doubts on the donations are not clarified. The district collector and endowment officials should take care of things, otherwise, they should be held responsible. If not, Lord Rama should come in his new avatar (incarnation).”
