Now all the temples of Bihar will have to pay 4% tax of the total income. The Bihar State Religious Trust Board is running a massive campaign for the registration of public temples in the state. It will be intensified from December 1. Apart from the board, common people can also participate in this. If there is any public temple near you, then you can inform the Bihar State Religious Trust Board about it by appearing personally or through post. For the registration of temples, along with the information, the relevant documents will also have to be provided. The Board of Religious Trust will check and register the said documents.
4,600 temples have been registered so far
AK Jain, chairman of the Bihar State Religious Trust Board, says that a total of 4,600 temples have been registered by the board. There are still many major temples of the state, which are not registered. Some big temples are not paying tax to the regular board despite registration. A letter has been written to the District Magistrates on behalf of the Ministry of Law to get information about the land of the temples registered earlier. Till now, the District Magistrate has provided information about the land of some temples only for Bhojpur. DMs of other districts have also been instructed to provide information about the land of temples at the earliest.
Difference between public and private temples
According to the rules of the Board of Religious Trusts, if a temple is situated within the boundary wall of a person’s house and worshiped in it by members of the same household or family, then it will be considered private or personal. If a temple is outside the boundary wall of a house or a house where more than one family worships and makes offerings, then it will be considered public. Every public temple has to be registered with the Religious Trust Board. After registration, the board has to pay tax at four percent of the total income.
Source : The India Print
