Hyderabad: With state’s decision to take over two acre land belonging to Visakha Sri Sarada Peetham at Kokapet for the Godavari water project drawing flak from different quarters, including BRS and BJP, the Congress govt on Saturday evening did a U-turn and decided to withdrew its decision.Chief minister A Revanth Reddy has expressed anger at officials for not providing the latest information on the status of constructions in the Peetham land. The CM ordered that the land allocated to Sarada Peetham should continue to belong to the Peetham. Representatives of the Peetham brought to Revanth Reddy’s attention the ongoing construction at the site, which was allocated to Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) recently.
Reviewing the current status of various constructions at the Peetham’s site at a meeting with senior officials at the secretariat on Saturday evening, he ordered the cancellation of allocations to the Water Board and asked Peetham representatives meet with minister D Sridhar Babu to explain the constructions and other conditions.Earlier, on Saturday morning, the govt decided to take over two acres of land allotted to the Peetham. Though formal notices were not served on the Peetham, revenue and police officials visited the site and inspected the premises without informing it about govt’s proposal. This led to heated arguments between officials and the representatives of the Peetham. While the Peetham strongly objected to the unauthorised entry of the officials, that too on Friday night and Saturday morning, former minister T Harish Rao also visited the Peetham on Saturday morning and expressed solidarity with the Peetham management.The then BRS govt had allotted two acre land to the Sarada Peetham five years ago for the construction of Shyamala Devi temple, a vedic school, an ashram, a goshala, an annadana hall, and some staff quarters.“The Peetham paid about 1.05 crore to the state govt and obtained all the permissions from the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA). It also paid vacant land tax and other fee legally. We completed the temple, goshala and Veda Patashala, and some works are underway. The revenue and police officials instructed us not to hold any rituals at the temple and enquired about the status of various works,” Peetham Uttaradhikari Sri Swatmanandendra Saraswati told TOI.He said the revenue and police officials even thwarted their priests in the morning when they went to the temple to complete the daily rituals.
