The Jagannath Temple in Puri. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 17: Lord Jagannath of Puri is expected to become richer if the state government succeeds in its efforts to retrieve all lands belonging to Him.

Properties in the name of the Lord are scattered all over the country.

The temple administration said that 56,853 acres and 623 decimal of land across the state belong to Jagannath.

Moreover, 395 acres and 25 decimal of land outside the state too, are stated to be Jagannath’s property.

“The state has so far sold 291 acres and 747.5 decimal of land and collected Rs 7,97,16,500,” said law minister Bikarm Keshari Arukh. The money has been deposited to the corpus fund of the Lord, he said.

The state government would like to dispose off the land and deposit the amount with the temple.

As per the Temple Act, “Lands of the temple can not be sold but given for a specific purpose by taking adequate compensation. The lands are scattered all over the country including Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Even buildings have been located in Varanasi and Lucknow,” said Arukh.

“Our government has been in touch with the respective state governments to get back the Lord’s properties. However, so far no positive result has yet come out,” former Puri MLA Umma Ballabha Rath said.

The state government has asked all the district collectors to identify the plots which belonged to the temple and initiate steps to regularise the lands by collecting adequate compensation.

“If the tenants paid adequate compensation, land could be transferred to them,” said an official.

Chief temple administrator Pradeepta Kumar Mohapatra said that the temple administration was making efforts to increase its income.

As per the plan of the temple administration, lands would be sold and money received from it would be fixed on the Lord’s account.

Another proposal, he said, is to regularise the unauthorised encroachments in Puri where people had already built houses and have been living for ages.

“We don’t mind even regularising encroachments. In such cases, the encroachers will have to pay compound tax after the value of their properties is assessed. However, this needed to be approved by the sevayats of the temple,” Mohapatra said.

In 2001, cutting across party affiliations, several MLAs urged the chief minister to set up a special court to resolve any dispute arising from special settlement operation and all lands encroached should be freed with heavy punishment to the encroachers. However, the state government has not taken any steps in this regard.

“We don’t have any immediate plan to set up a first track court exclusively to deal with the illegal encroachment lands,” said the law minister.