News from The Hindu (2016 June 12) Hyderabad The AP Archaka Samakhya has filed an impleading petition in Supreme Court in the long-pending Swamy Dayananda Saraswathi’s case for freeing temples from government control and challenging the Endowments Acts of three States - Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry. The final hearing on the petition filed by Swamy Dayananda will commence in July. The temple priests and other employees of temples in erstwhile combined State of Andhra Pradesh and now in the successor States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had been agitating against non-implementation of Endowments (Amendment) Act, 2007. The Act was amended after stiff opposition to the Endowments Act of 1987 and a petition was filed in the Supreme Court. But the amended Act was not implemented so far in the Telugu States and it was diluted further by the government in Andhra Pradesh after bifurcation, Samakhya representatives said. Meanwhile, the reports given by the Supreme Court appointed committees -- the Pay Scales Committee and the Archaka Welfare Committee in 1997 -- were also not implemented despite the direction of the apex court, the Telangana Archaka Samakhya president C.S. Rangarajan said. The apathy of the government in addressing the grievances of the Archakas and temple employees or giving funds for upkeep of temples and temple rituals has only intensified the movement to free temples from government control. The government takes 21.5 per cent of donations made by the devotees to temples and the Endowment Department is run with taxes collected from temples to pay salaries of its officers. But it hardly spent money on dilapidated temples or gave financial assistance to archakas or employees. The Temple Protection Movement proposed to take this report to public and devotees to highlight how their contributions were not being spent for better upkeep of the temples but to run the Endowment Department and pay salaries of its officers.