Poojary Voices Suspicions of Discrepancies in Flood Relief Funds
Daijiworld Media Network—Mangalore (RS/CN)
Mangalore, Oct 20: Former union minister B Janardhana Poojary demanded that the state government show transparency in collecting funds for relief work in the flood-affected north Karnataka region.
Speaking at a press meet on Tuesday October 20, he said, “Chief minister Yeddyurappa has collected donations thrice through ‘padayatras’, but there is no transparency in this and there is no information about the amount collected through these donations”.
“Money collected from people must be accounted and if it is not declared, it will be suspected that are irregularities. So, the chief minister should give the accounts of money collected in these three ‘padayatras’”, he added.
Poojary said that the state government had sent a memorandum to the union government but its contents had not been revealed. “The people of the state want to know about the memorandum and the estimates of loss caused by floods. But they have ordered that the contents of the memorandum be not revealed”, he said.
“When the opposition leader in the state asked for details of the memorandum, the chief minister did not respond”, said Poojary adding that the opposition leader is a ‘shadow chief minister’ in a democracy and is entitled to know of state affairs.
“We do not know how much money has been released by the state government. First they have to stop blaming the union government”, he said.
Poojary expressed his doubts about the collected donations being used in an appropriate manner.
He added that he had contributed his pension of three months, amounting Rs 75,000, towards flood relief. Poojary went on to say that Rs 1 lac will be sent from Kudroli Gokarnanatha Temple.
Former MLA Vijayakumar Shetty, Congress leaders Harikrishna Bantwal, M G Hegde, and others were present.