Mumbai: Mismanagement of Trust’s funds has been observed from the annual report of ‘Sree Shirdi Sansthan’ under the control of the State Government. Sree Shirdi Sansthan has squandered crores of rupees offered by devotees for erecting fountains in the town and construction of wall in the temple for its beautification.
The State Government is very eager to take over management of all places of worship belonging to Hindus, Jain, Parsis and Sikhs by passing an Act to the effect under the pretext of mismanagement by private Trustees. The experiment of taking over management of temples was first tried with taking over Sree Shirdi Sansthan and later Sree Siddhivinayak Trust.
After Govt. takes over, there is a long list of malpractices with regard to management of Sree Siddhivinayak Trust. Recently a wall was constructed to protect the temple by spending 6 crores of rupees which was declared as unauthorized by High Court ordering its demolition. Now the experts in construction business are raising doubts about expenditure of Rs. 6 cores on the construction of the wall.
Recently, even the Shirdi Trust has constructed a wall for protection and beautification of the temple. As per the report, an amount of Rs. 1 crore and 6 lakhs has been spent for the same. Daily, thousand of devotees visit Shirdi. After the ‘darshan’ of Sai Baba, devotees should have some place for relaxing and entertainment. With this viewpoint, it has been planned to develop gardens in the town. As a part of such beautification, the management of the Trust has decided to construct fountains in the open space of Nagar-Panchayat near Ahmednagar � Manmad highway. Government has approved expenses of Rs.4, 33,000/- for the purpose.
(This is an example of how the money of Hindu temples under control of Govt. is mismanaged. Hindus should take lesson from this example and prepare to oppose the Maharashtra Govt.’s proposed ‘Temple takeover Bill’ � Editor)
Source: ‘Dainik Sanatan Prabhat’
