The State Minister for Transport and Devaswom, Mr V. S. Sivakumar, has said that the rare gold, silver and precious stones discovered at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple here cannot be classified under the Treasure Trove Act.

The clarification came on the floor of the State Assembly on Monday while the Minister was replying to a question.

TEMPLE'S OWN

The massive find of rare wealth discovered from the temple vaults belonged to the temple and would remain with the temple, the Minister said.

He said this while taking cognisance of suggestions that the assets would come under the definition of a ‘trove,' and therefore lend themselves to be taken over by the State.

The Minister said a fool-proof and fail-proof security was sought to be accorded to the temple, whose newfound wealth has attracted global attention.

ADEQUATE SECURITY

Adequate number of personnel has been drawn from the police, the Rapid Action Force and the State's own special commando force.

The State Government would meet all costs of ensuring adequate security to the temple wealth.

At least 53 security personnel have been positioned inside the temple and 74 outside of it. The security operations were being handled by an Additional Director-General of Police.

According to Mr Sivakumar, the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple has now become the richest in the country.

There has been a significant increase in the number of devotees thronging the temple ever since the revelation about its assets and their purported value.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, Mr T. M. Jacob, told the House that the Re 1-per kg of rice scheme would be implemented in the State.

RICE SCHEME

All deserving persons would benefit from through the scheme, he said. He reiterated that the Government would take steps to identify and weed out names of the non-deserving persons from the list.

In this context, he stated that names of even Government employees have been found in the list.

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