BHUBANESWAR : Questioning the motive of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) to park huge funds of the shrine in Yes Bank, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday asked the State Government to conduct a high level probe and take those responsible for putting the temple funds at risk to task. “The decision to keep a deposit amounting to `592 crore in a private bank is not possible without the approval of the Chief Minister, who is chairman of the Shree Jagannath Temple Foundation Fund,” State BJP general secretary Pruthiviraj Harichandan told a media conference here.
As per the Shree Jagannath Temple Act, “All amounts credited to the Foundation Fund shall be invested in long term fixed deposits with such banks as the State Government may approve and shall always be kept so invested.” The other members of the Foundation Fund are Law Minister, secretaries of Law and Finance departments, Puri District Collector and Administrator of the SJTA.
The BJP leader dared the Chief Minister to say that he has no knowledge about the parking of Jagannath temple funds in Yes Bank. It is now incumbent upon the Chief Minister to make those members of the committee accountable for taking the decision to deposit the fund in a private bank which was not empanelled by the State Government till 2019.
Citing letters issued by the Finance Department, Harichandan said the decision to empanel Yes Bank was taken by Finance Secretary Ashok Meena in July 2019 knowing fully well that the private bank had doubtful credentials. The dwindling performance of the bank had been visible since 2017. If the country’s richest temple Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams could smell something fishy in the bank and withdrew `1,300 crore in October last year, why didn’t SJTA take a similar step, he asked.
The Government’s decision to park these funds in Yes Bank came to light after an IAS officer of the Agriculture department was accused of graft for his decision to shift about `80 crore from a public sector bank to the private bank. Harichandan urged the State Government to conduct a high level probe into all financial irregularities of Shree Jagannath Temple and take exemplary action against those responsible for depositing the temple money in the private bank. He further requested the Government to publish a white paper on all of its deposits in banks not approved failing which the BJP will resort to legal course.