Illegal religious structures to be resurveyed: CM

PANJIM, APRIL 19
The Chief Minister Digambar Kamat has ordered a resurvey of the unauthorised religious structures on public property even as Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS) has planned a rally on April 22 to condemn Government’s plans ‘to target’ Hindu structures.
The decision to resurvey was taken after the issue was raised by Power Minister Aleixo Sequeira at the last Cabinet meeting wherein he pointed out discrepancies in the survey conducted by the Government following Supreme Court orders. Demanding a resurvey he had alleged that the identification exercise was done haphazardly.
Giving the example of the 400-year old Verna Church which has been identified as unauthorised, he said though the Government notification says Fabrica is the owner, it had gone ahead and declared it as unauthorised.
Quoting the notification, Sequeira said Fabrica de Verna is shown as the owner of the church. Sequeira has demanded that even after the resurvey, senior Government officers should be asked to verify what is recorded in the (re)survey.
As reported earlier, around 800 structures including temples, chapels and churches besides ghumtis and crosses, masjids have been identified by the State Government as unauthorised on government land as well as communidade property.
Interestingly, even as resurvey has been planned, the Government has also set up a committee headed by the Chief Secretary to go into the issue on case-to-case basis.
On Monday, HJS at a press conference here said it had no problem if Government decided to relocate these structures but opposed relocation of some temples particularly the old ones.
HJS Convenor and spokesman Jayesh Thali demanded to have a proper case study of all these structures before declaring it legal or illegal and demolishing it.
“The rehabilitation of these structures can be allowed only when a proper study is done. There are some temples which are as old as 500 years and are listed as illegal structure by State Government. There is no proper base for declaring it illegal”, Thali stated.
Thali said that there are temples prior to Goa liberation and these are termed as unauthorised which he said is totally unfair. He suspected some design to target Hindu temples under the guise of implementing the Supreme Court order giving political colour to the sensitive issue.
The State Government recently listed 800 structures, including 350 temples, in its list of illegal religious structures in public places – Government and communidade land. The revenue department conducted a survey of the religious structures as per Supreme Court order. The department didn’t go into the age of the religious structures as the SC order didn’t ask the States to go into the issue.
There appears be a misunderstanding that the State Government list of unauthorised religious structures is pertaining only to those existing along the highways.
Incidentally, Thali said “most of the temples are far way from the main highways…these structures cannot be called as road side illegal structures”.
The fact is that there are old temples in the State but new religious structures have come up in a big way in the last 15 years – in some form or the other – some in the name of reconstruction of shrines and many through MPLAD scheme though officially it was for construction of community halls.
HJS said that the local temple committee members should have been taken into confidence by the Government before declaring them as ‘illegal’.
“If contacted, the temple authorities would have given the exact time period in which they were built and also their significance to local population”, he maintained.
As a part of this protest, HJS has organised a massive rally and a Hindu Dharma Jagruti Sabha on April 22 at Azad Maidan.
The HJS has launched a state-wide agitation to spread awareness amongst Hindus about safeguarding temples. They have already conducted meetings in 150 places and have contacted all those temple committees, whose temples have been listed as illegal.