Telangana Plans to Protect 6,000 Acres of Temple Land

Hyderabad: The state government plans to safeguard 6,000 acres of temple land situated in various other states. It has deployed teams from the endowment department to several states to inspect the sites to determine their status and submit detailed reports.

The endowments department owns 6,180 acres of temple land across four states. Of this, 3,709.55 acres are in Maharashtra, 1,137 acres in Karnataka and 1,092.43 acres in Andhra Pradesh.

Official sources revealed that these teams have already reported that many of these lands are encroached upon, while other land parcels remain vulnerable to future encroachments unless proper fencing and protection measures are implemented.

Officials have identified 91,827 acres of temple land within the state’s jurisdiction. Among these, about 25,000 acres have been encroached upon, and 6,000 acres are located in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Rajasthan.

The records indicate that more than 3,000 acres belong to mutts (monastic institutions). Of these, 1,052.07 acres belong to the Bhadrachalam Sri Seetha Ramachandra Swamy Temple, located in the districts of Guntur, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Prakasam and Kurnool districts in Andhra Pradesh.

Similarly, the Ramachandra Swamy Temple in Lingala Ghanpur of Janagaon district holds 12.19 acres, located in the Kornepadu village of Guntur district. The Seetha Ramachandra Swamy Temple in Rangashaipet of Warangal district has 8 acres of land in Krishna district’s Penuganchiprolu.

In Mahbubnagar district, the Alampur Balabrahmeswara Swamy Annadanam Math has 20.17 acres, which are situated in the village of G. Singavaram in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.

Further, Siddhalingeshwara Swamy Temple in Maganooru, Narayanapet district, has 1,137 acres of land, recorded as located in Karnataka. Additionally, the Sri Ramachandra Gopalakrishna Mutt in Adilabad owns 1,280.38 acres at Gosmi village, Khalapur taluka of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra.

According to official records, the Siddhalingeshwara Swamy temple in Maganoor village of Narayanpet district's Neredugom mandal owns 1,137 acres of endowment land, which is shown to be located in the state of Karnataka. Similarly, the Sriramachandra Gopala Krishna Math in Adilabad holds 1,280.38 acres of land, which is recorded as being in Gosmi village, Khelapur taluka of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra.

The Sitarambagh Sitaramachandra Swamy temple in Mallepally, Asifnagar, Hyderabad, owns 2,492.17 acres of endowment land, which is also recorded as being located in parts of Maharashtra’s Amravati district and in Pushkar, Rajasthan.

The situation became more complex as these temple lands, which span across four states, do not have clear boundaries or demarcations. This lack of proper documentation has resulted in several lands being encroached upon by unauthorised parties. The Telangana government is now grappling with how to recover these lands.

The government is planning to write to governments of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka soon seeking their help and cooperation to reclaim encroached lands, the sources said.

The government is considering auctioning these land parcels and utilising the revenues accrued to fund the development of temples in Telangana since safeguarding these lands from encroachers in other states was posing challenges. The state government is preparing to take action to reclaim lands, but the outcome will depend on political negotiations with neighbouring states, they added.