No misuse of funds, says ISKCON chief

ISKCON, Bangalore's famous pilgrim center for Hindus, is the news again, but for all the wrong reasons. In a press conference convened to respond to the allegations of funds misuse and worse leveled by devotees, the ISKCON president, Sri Madhu Pandit Das refuted all the allegations of amassing wealth by the some of the trustees and questioned the motives of those hurling such baseless allegations.

The ISKCON chief gave details of funds and charity activities of various trusts under his fold and said all the funds and properties are jointly managed by the trustees and none of them earned any profit from these.

To make the administration more transparent, he said all the governing council members including him had voluntarily disclosed the financial status and personal assets through individual affidavits filed before the magistrate on Wednesday. This effectively rebuffed any allegations of diversion of funds by the trustees for their personal benefit, he said.

What has stoked the controversy in the minds of a section of the devotees is ISKCON's alleged real estate business. Clarifying the issue, Sri Madhu Pandit Das said, "The trust had bought 27 acres of land from private bodies barring the government sanctioned land to house its patrons, donors and well-wishers. The funds generated out of the housing project would be used for the proposed Krishna Theme park near Kanakapura."

On why the trust based its fund raising campaign in the US, Sri Das remarked that the organization was based in US to enable the donors there to get tax exemption in that country.

Sri Das said the false allegations against ISKCON were a part of a motivated campaign to discredit ISKCON's flagship project, the Akshaya Patra Foundation.