More than fifty per cent of land owned by 11th century Lord Lingaraj temple here, the famous Shaivite shrine in the city protected by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI), is under unauthorized occupation in Bhubaneswar city.

According to the latest findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, “36.370 acres out of 69.423 acres of land in Bhubaneswar, were under encroachment. Of this, in 23 cases, encroachment involved more than 0.30 acres of land in each case”.

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Incidentally, the encroached temple land is currently valued at crores of rupees. If insiders are to be believed, the land grabbers are mostly influential people and realtors.

“Land measuring 5.988 acres situated in Gautam Nagar under Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation area was in the name of Sri Lingaraj Mahaprabhu Marfat Trust Board in the Sabik-41 record. In 1995, the land was settled in the name of a former trustee of the trust board. The market value of the land, as reported by the Endowment Officer of the temple in November 2019, stood at Rs 62.87 crore”, the CAG audit pointed out.

As per Section 19 of Odisha Hindu Religious Endowments (OHRE) Act, 1951, no transfer by exchange, sale or mortgage and no lease for a term exceeding five years of any immovable property belonging to, or given or endowed for the purpose of any Religious Institution (RI), shall be made unless it is sanctioned by the Endowment Commissioner as being necessary or beneficial to the institution.

It was noted that the Trust Boards of the RIs failed to report to the EC about the encroachment of landed property due to which eviction measures contemplated under Section 25 of the OHRE Act had not been initiated (March 2020) in any of the RIs concerned.

Failure to trace and track properties owned by these RIs bears the risk of the ownership of property getting changed over a course of time or it becoming more difficult to recover the encroached land.

The EO of Sri Lingaraj Temple had filed 272 cases against the encroachers between 1990 and 2010. The EC had disposed of 222 cases as of October 2019. Of this, the EC forwarded 196 cases to the District Collector, Khurdha for eviction of encroachments. On the remaining 26 disposed of cases, actions to be taken were not on record. Of the 196 cases referred to the Collector, 79 cases related to Bhubaneswar Tahasil only. Of this, possession was recovered in 15 cases and 17 were pending for want of action at the level of District Collectors.

In the remaining 47 cases, it was reported (January 2017) that eviction was not possible by demolishing/ evicting dwelling units or shops constructed in the encroached lands due to probable law and order situations that might arise, CAG report maintained.