Valuable land worth crores of rupees belonging to various deities of Keonjhar district have gone into the hands of encroachers and land mafia.
The Endowment Department under the State Law Department is the custodian of the land. The authorities seem not to be concerned about protection of the land for which eviction of such encroachments is very slow.
More than 20,000 acres of such land belonging to different temples and religious mutts are under encroachment by people across Keonjhar but instances of eviction or stringent action are rare.
In the meantime, to weaken the Debottar Offices working as caretakers of these temples, the State Government has tried to amend the Odisha Hindu Religious Endowment Act (OHRE) and centralize more power with the Government.
By this, the local trust board or advisory committees have to take approval of the Government through the Debottar Commissioner in matter of temple property and the decision of the Government will be final and binding on the temple trusts.
The Government authorities will be the appointing/nominating authorities of trustee members and Executive Officers.
By this, the local trustees or managing boards have little power to exercise for the welfare, management and protection of the temple deity and property.
There is possibility of misuse of power by the Government authorities as Debottar deals with invaluable wealth and landed property. One Rajkishore Nanda has filed a case in the Orissa High Court to stay the recent Gazette notification on amendment of OHRE.
There are around 22,000 temples and mutts in the State and lakhs of acres land belonging to such temple deities.
The Marphatdars (custodians) have managed to loot temple wealth, valuable deity land in favour of their families and well wishers finding flaws in the Endowment law in many places.
The enforcement and eviction of land by Debottar or Trusts has become impossible due to lack of adequate staff which in turn has favoured the encroachers. It is even difficult to evict or restore deity land encroached by influential persons in spite of court orders in favour of the deity.
For instance, Sri Baladev Jew temple has about 22,000 acres of land during takeover by Debottar but most of the land is encroached or not in present procession of the temple. Recently, more than 200 encroachment cases have been booked in Keonjhar town alone but not a decimal has been evicted so far.
The advisory board of the temple has not been constituted since last few years awaiting the decision of the Government.
Hence, instead of strengthening the Debottor and temple trusts monopolizing power with the Government will not only weaken the temple management but also widen the gap of local devotees with the temple, lawyer Debashis Dash alleged.
