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PADT to make amount of monetary offerings public

KATHMANDU, NOV 02 -
The Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) on Wednesday decided to maintain transparency and make public the amount of monetary offerings at Pashupatinath and Bashuki temples.

With the decision of the PADT board meeting, the offerings of Pashupatinath that remained the property of the priests, bhattas and bhandaris will come to the Trust’s coffers after a month. Culture Minister and the ex-officio chairperson of the Trust, Gopal Kirati, said a seven-member committee headed by PADT Member-secretary Sushil Nahata has been formed to formulate regulation for the offering management. The committee has been given a month to draft the regulation. Earlier, only the money that was collected in the donation box belonged to the Trust. The offering management will start once the ministry endorses the regulation and forms procedures for its implementation. “We hope to begin the offering management within a month,” said Kirati. The Trust has also decided to appoint Kosh Prasad Acharya as the Board’s director.

Acharya, former director general at the Department of Archeology, had retired from the job two years ago. The Board meeting also endorsed the Trust’s annual budget of Rs 137.5 million for the fiscal year 2011/12. The Trust plans to carry out renovation of Kirateshwor temple with Rs 3 million. The meet also decided to block the road connecting Tilgnaga with Nagganga, a shortcut route from Tilganga to Gothatar, saying it had adverse effect on the Unesco heritage site.

The minister informed that the Board endorsed the plan to give seven ropanies of Trust land to the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare for the construction of an old-age home.

Posted on: 2011-11-03 08:56

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