188 temple priests receive relief in Dindigul

HR&CE department lands will be retrieved in district, says Minister

Minister for Cooperation I. Periyasamy on Monday gave away 10 kg of rice, grocery kit bags and financial assistance of ₹4,000 each to 188 archakas serving in temples in the district.

The Minister said all shrines in the State remained out of bounds for devotees due to the pandemic. The lockdown resulted in people remaining indoors and economic activities coming to a standstill. To overcome the medical emergency, the State government under the leadership of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin thad taken numerous measures.

As a result of the works carried out by multi-department officials and frontline workers, the number of positive cases had subsided to a great extent. In a bid to give hope of resuming normalcy, the government had announced certain relaxations, while the curfew continued to remain in force in over 10 districts, he said and thanked the people for their cooperation with the official machinery.

Recalling the efforts of late Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, he said the DMK, whenever it came to power, served all classes of people without any discrimination. Be it temples, mosques, churches or gurudwaras, the welfare measures reached all the needy. Since the time the Justice Party laid out the guidelines for HR&CE administration, several reforms were brought in by Mr. Karunanidhi. Today, Mr. Stalin was following the same path, which fetched desired results.

Collector S. Visagan said there were 149 temples in the district with sound financial resources and managed affairs on their own, while 1,511 had limited resources. The government had stepped in to rescue archakas of these temples with the aid.

Lok Sabha MP P. Velusami, HR&CE Assistant Commissioner Anitha, Assistant Collector (Training) Priyanka and others participated in the function.

In a brief chat with reporters, Mr. Periyasamy took a dig at AIADMK MLA Natham R Viswanathan for his remark that whenever the DMK came to power, there was power shortage in the State. He said the AIADMK government had indulged in mismanagement and substations were being maintained by Tangedco as per the protocol only after the DMK came back to power.

All efforts would be made to retrieve lands that belonged to HR&CE department in the district, he added.

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