The Tamil Nadu Temple Tenants Welfare Association has urged the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department to implement the suggestions of the fair rent fixation committee.
Association president Balasubramanian said that it had been a year since the high-level committee was constituted and that the Minister for HR&CE P.K. Sekarbabu promised in June that the committee’s recommendations would be fair and reasonable.
The grouse of the association was that though over the past two decades efforts to fix rents for residential and commercial properties belonging to temples had gone in vain because of various anomalies. “The hike was to be done once in three years, which was an acceptable norm but the rent was based on guideline value of the property. Rent has nothing to do with guideline value,” he said.
At one point of time, the temples were asked to collect revised rent with retrospective effect, which was not affordable. The present rate is at least five times that of what was being paid in 2016. For instance, in Korattur in Chennai, for a 463 sq ft shop, the rent, which was ₹1,051 is now ₹4,200, Mr. Balasubramanian added.
