Silvester D'Souza

Daijiworld Media Network - Kundapur (SP)

Kundapur, Jan 9: Food for the people who had gathered at 'Sadhana Samavesha' organized under the leadership of the chief minister on January 8 in Byndoor assembly constituency has given rise to a debate about whether this was in order or not.

Several have questioned the provision of afternoon food for this programme from the temple. They wanted to know how can the people who stopped the temple from giving food to a school can consume food provided by the temple at 'Sadhana Samavesha'. They feel that going by the stand taken by the government that supplying of food to a private school from the temple was wrong, then the current initiative of diverting food for the government programme also was wrong. Some social websites have been carrying pictures of food being taken from the temple in trucks to the venue of the above programme.

Executive officer of the temple, Janardhan, when contacted, argued that the temple has done nothing wrong. "As this was a government programme, there is a provision to provide temple food for it. The Tahasildar had written a letter seeking food arrangement from the temple and a favourable decision thereof was taken at the meeting of the managing committee. The president of temple management committee, sensing that a controversy might be raked up on the issue, had donated one lac rupees on January 6 towards food to ensure that the temple does not suffer loss on this account," he explained.

President of the temple managing committee, Harish Kumar Shetty, also said that there is provision as per rules to provide temple food for government programmes. He said that personally he had remitted one lac rupees to the temple through cheque towards meeting the above expenses.