Unmesh Gujarathi
Sprouts Exclusive
There is a corruption of crores of rupees in the Khandoba temple at Jejuri. The Special Investigation Team of ‘Sprouts’ has received shocking information that this corruption is increasing day by day with the cooperation of the local board of trustees, political leaders and charity commissioner.
There is a temple of Lord Khandoba in Jejuri village of the Pune district of Maharashtra. Khandoba is the family deity of Maharashtra. Therefore devotees not only from Maharashtra but also from abroad come to have darshan of this deity.
The management of Martand Dev Sansthan receives crores of rupees in donations from these devotees every year. But there is a lot of corruption in this. Not only this, Nanda Raut, the social worker has made a shocking allegation while speaking to ‘Sprouts’ that no information regarding the donations received from the devotees is given not only to the devotees but also to the former trustees.
Jejuri Temple has a history of 400 years. During these 400 years, old kings and devotees have gifted lands worth crores of rupees to the temple. So far there are more than 250 acres of land in Jejuri village and outside Pune, Satara and Solapur districts. The temple does not get any form of income from this land. The rights of this land belong to Devasthan. But Sunil Aaswalikar, a former trustee, has been living illegally on the temple premises for years. Overall, all these lands have been usurped. Due to this, Devasthan has to miss the monthly income of lakhs of rupees.
As trustees have been doing corruption for years, these land grabbers are well aware of their deeds. Due to this, these lands worth crores of rupees have been grabbed by the tradition of ‘teri bhi chup, meri bhi chup’ (You are silent, I am also silent) and therefore there is no question of taking any kind of action against it. When Tushar Sahane, chief trustee of the temple was contacted, he could not be reached.
There is a corruption of crores of rupees on a large scale in Martand Devasthanam in various ways. Therefore devotee Surendra Kadam asked the temple for an internal audit report. He sought this report from RTI. On this, The trust said, ‘This trust does not come under the ambit of public authority. Therefore, the right to information 2005 is not applicable to this trust’ and refused to provide any information in this regard and the application was disposed of.
Actually, this Martand Dev Sansthan is a trust registered under Public Trust Act. However, the temple management has arbitrarily dismissed the RTI application. From this, the way of covering up the corruption of the trustees has been exposed.