An inspection report of the Principal Accountant General (General and Social Sector Audit), Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, has accused several ancient temples in Tamil Nadu of misusing Central Government funds allocated to them.
The funds were misused for “the construction of new mandapams , reconstruction of mandapams , construction and reconstruction of walls, and dismantling the existing structures and [their] re-construction” when they should have been used “only to renovate, repair and maintain ancient temples.”
These temples are administered by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR & CE) Department.
The audit report, dated July 10, 2014, which was released recently, identified 13 temples which cumulatively spent Rs. 3.42 crore on these new works. It termed them “improper expenditure incurred towards new construction and reconstruction.”
The 13 temples include Chendrayaswamy temple, Dharmapuri (Rs. 39 lakh); Tirukameswaram temple, Vandavasi (Rs. 16.3 lakh), Madhya Nataraja temple, Villupuram (Rs. 24 lakh), Pasupatheeswarar temple, Thanjavur (Rs. 36 lakh); Varadaraja temple,Valangaiman (Rs. 38 lakh); Kallazhagar Temple, Madurai (Rs. 50 lakh), Valmiginathaswamy temple, Karaikudi (Rs. 53 lakh), and Sowmya Narayanaperumal temple, Thirukoshtiyur, Sivaganga (Rs. 26 lakh).
A scrutiny of records, including utilisation certificates and estimates, revealed “lacunas and lapses in respect of financial propriety, compliance and control over expenditure,” the report said.
For instance, three temples, Prasanna Venkatachalapathy temple, Vaaligandapuram, Perambalur district, which received a grant of Rs. 25 lakh, Sri Thyagarajaswamy temple, Tiruvarur, which received Rs. 46 lakh, and Sri Nithyapuriswarar temple, Valangaiman, which received Rs. 18 lakh, all for 2011-12, did not commence any work till July 10, 2014.
“A grant of Rs. 89 lakh has been kept idle in the bank account of these temples, without utilising it for the intended purposes for more than two years. The action taken by the department has not been furnished. The unutilised amount requires to be recovered as per the conditions of the grant and credited back to the Government account,” it asserted.
The report demanded that the temples, which received the grants, “maintain properly” all details related to expenditure, vouchers, measurement of work done, certificate of completion, bank pass books, cheque books and cash books.
“But no such records were furnished to the audit,” it noted.
What appalled the auditing officials was that modern cement, instead of limestone, had been used for renovating the Moolavar Mandapam at Adhinarayana temple at Pazhaverkadu (Pulicat) which received a grant of Rs. 60 lakh for 2011-12.
Hence the work was stopped after Rs. nine lakh were spent.
The temple officials submitted a revised estimate for Rs. 70 lakh for re-working with limestone, which meant an additional expenditure of Rs. 10 lakh. All this had caused “an additional expenditure of Rs.19 lakh” including an “unfruitful” expenditure of Rs. 9 lakh and delay in the work execution, the report said.
The auditing officials were aghast that the temple authorities had not consulted the Archaeology Department.
“As the grant is purely for the betterment of the ancient temples, the Archaeology Department should have been consulted and the list of ancient temples obtained,” it said.
Allowing the temples to keep the money for more than a year when they had not spent it “for the intended purposes” and “non-production of records to verify the correctness of expenditure is against the provisions of financial propriety,” the report asserted.
