Date:19/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/19/stories/2008041954590500.htm

Kerala - Kochi

Government has no right to take over temple: NSS

Staff Reporter

Court order on Padmanabhaswamy temple

Royal family told to go in appeal
‘Appoint efficient persons in TDB’

KOCHI: The government has no right to take over the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, as it is the family temple of the erstwhile Travancore royal family, Nair Service Society (NSS) general secretary P.K. Narayana Panicker has said.

Talking to presspersons here on Friday, he said the family should go in appeal with the higher court if there was an order from a Sub-Court regarding the takeover of the temple. There were many temples in the State that were owned and run by Namboodiri families. The government had no role there, he said.

Mr. Panicker said he did not support any move to form a body like the Tirumala Tirupathi Devaswom as it had only one temple to manage. “There are several hundred temples under the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) here that have their own characteristics and rituals. The need is to appoint efficient, sincere and dedicated people on the board that will make the body function in a proper manner,” he said. The TDB would not function efficiently just by changing its name, he said.

Mr. Panicker came down heavily on the criticism of rituals followed in temples. He said devotees had faith in temple rituals and the government had no business interfering with these. The low point of the TDB’s functioning was the non-availability of ‘prasadam’ for devotees at Sabarimala. The government has to own responsibility for it, he said.

On education

With regard to education, Mr. Panicker said the government had to think about the quality of education going down due to paucity of permanent lecturers in aided colleges. Appointing guest lecturers was not a solution, as the low salaries never attracted many. This also affected the quality of education, he said. He said the NSS had not thought of foraying into medical professional college because of the finances involved. “One cannot run a medical college without paying good salaries and providing good infrastructure. And the finances cannot be generated without commercialising the project,” he said.