35 donation boxes, 2 shifts: As SIT probes Ram Mandir ‘fund theft’, how count is kept

An innocuously named ‘Pilgrim Facilitation Centre’ is at the heart of the row brewing over Ram Temple donation funds in Ayodhya. Located 200 metres from the main temple, and bearing its architectural imprint, the building holds a counting room in the basement. It is to this room that collections from the 35-odd donation boxes fixed across the shrine premises are brought and counted.

With around one lakh devotees visiting the temple daily, the counting is done in two shifts — roughly 8 am to 2 pm, and 2 pm to 8 pm — by about 20 tellers each.

Daily donations are estimated to be Rs 8 to Rs 13 lakh. But, as per an employee of the Ram Janmabhoomi Kshetra Teerth Trust, deployed in the counting room, “There are days when it reaches Rs 50 to Rs 60 lakh.”

The employee is among those who has been questioned by a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Uttar Pradesh government to probe allegations that gold, silver and diamond ornaments donated by devotees have been replaced with fake items, besides money being stolen, from the temple’s collection.

Ram Temple administration is facing allegations of misappropriation of donation funds and valuables offered by devotees. (File Photo)

The SIT is stationed at ‘Green House’, also located a stone’s throw from the shrine, and is examining records, and the process of counting, bookkeeping and deposit of funds, as well as talking to officials involved in managing donations and maintaining accounts.

Sources said the SIT’s preliminary report is expected in a day or two, and the final report next week. Police have received no formal complaints so far.

Amid the ongoing row, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be visiting Ayodhya on Friday noon, and is scheduled to visit the temple apart from inaugurating a Ramayan Wax Museum and a municipal zonal office.

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The counting

At the top of the pyramid is key Ram Janmabhoomi Kshetra Teerth Trust member Anil Mishra, who is in-charge of the entire donation process from storage to counting to use of the funds – and operates from an office adjoining the counting hall.

The official directly overseeing the counting is Subhash Srivastava, a retired bank official who works under Mishra. Each shift has different shift in-charges, who work under Srivastava. And finally, for every four-five tellers, there is a supervisor.

All the employees who are part of this exercise are either staffers of State Bank of India (SBI) — who have been outsourced by the bank and often chosen by trust officials — or members of the trust and local RSS leaders.

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The donation boxes are emptied as and when they fill up. At least four people are required to be present when this is done, including trust staff and a SBI employee. The money is transferred to iron box containers, locked, and driven in carts to the counting room, with CCTVs tracking their movement.

At the counting centre, the currency notes, coins and other offerings such as pieces of jewellery are segregated, before being assigned to the tellers, who do the counting stationed at different counters across the hall. The staff can leave the counting room only for toilet breaks and food, available just outside the hall. No one can leave the building during their shift.

Once counting is completed, the cash is again packed into bank containers or boxes, and sealed under supervision before being transported to the SBI branch every morning. The cash is then deposited into the trust’s designated donation account, after the bank has done its own verification. SBI also informs the trust about the amount credited and updates the account records.

A senior official said the account is a “no-cheque book” account. “For any expenditure, bills or payments, such as to vendors, contractors or service providers, the money is transferred digitally from account to account.”

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Nripendra Mishra, Chairman of the Construction Committee of the Ram Temple, said the fundraising that was done for the building of the shrine was a completely separate exercise, with the approximately Rs 3,500 crore raised at the time deposited and accounted for independently.

Apart from the counting centre staff, the Ram Janmabhoomi Kshetra Teerth Trust also employs thousands, including security guards, cooks, cleaners. Nearly 40 ex-Armymen are among the staff members.

The Sangh worry

RSS sources admitted that there was concern in the ranks about the damaging accusations, with the role of VHP vice-president and Ram Janmabhoomi Kshetra Teerth Trust general secretary Champat Rai, and former RSS prant pracharak Gopal Rao, who was brought in incidentally after controversies related to land deals of the trust, and is in-charge of daily activities such as darshan, coming under a cloud.

Anil Mishra and Subhash Srivastava, who are directly involved with the funds — and, in Mishra’s case, also of hiring employees — have RSS links too. While Mishra, a homoeopathic doctor, has been the RSS’s prant karyawah for Awadh for years, Srivastava is a veteran RSS sanghachalak of Acharya Nagar area in Ayodhya.

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As the overall in-charge of running of the shrine, Rai is among the most powerful people associated with the temple, with a say in most appointments. While other RSS leaders such as sah-sarkaryawah Krishna Gopal and former sarkaryawah Bhaiyaji Joshi visit and coordinate, their role is largely advisory.

A local RSS office-bearer said: “Several employees have been selected without proper scrutiny, just based on being relatives of someone. That is the root cause of the present problem.”

A source in the Sangh said: “Champat ji manages trust affairs like an RSS office, and that doesn’t help.”

The Indian Express reached out to Rai, Mishra and Srivastava, but they were unavailable or declined to speak. Rao said, “Now that the SIT is conducting a probe, let’s wait for its outcome before reaching any conclusions.”

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Another trustee, Dinendra Das of the Nirmohi Akhara, said: “I am sure that whoever has committed any wrong will be punished. I can’t say anything more at this stage.”

A source who works with the trust office said that a few weeks before the controversy broke, Rai was involved in a heated exchange with senior Sangh leaders such as Bajrang Dal founder Vinay Katiyar. In the wake of the row, Katiyar blamed trust officials, saying: “Such people have no place in the trust and should be removed… Sab ke sab chor hain (All of them are thieves).”

A national-level pracharak who has been involved with the Ram Temple since the 1980s said the allegations have “tarnished the Sangh image”. “Ashok Singhal ji and Moropant Pingle ji, both prime architects of the temple movement, never wanted the temple that was built to be managed by a trust. They would have never allowed it.”

With elections ahead, the Opposition believes it has an issue to put the Adityanath government on the mat, particularly as it is linked to a project championed by the BJP. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has called the charges of misappropriation of Ram Temple funds “extremely shameful” and called out “government silence” as “suspicious”.

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Congress state chief Ajay Rai, who visited Ayodhya Thursday, accused the BJP of “selling faith”. “Those who came in the name of religion have bartered it… There is organised robbery,” he said, adding that culpability went right to the top.

Examples from other temples

A trustee at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple said he did not remember any incident of the kind being alleged at Ayodhya. “We have around 50 donation boxes and they are opened every Friday and Tuesday, with counting done in a verandah of the temple by women devotees working for free, in the presence of two government nominees and bank officials (at present HDFC bank)… Everything is transparent and on camera, in the open.”

At Vindhyachal Temple, another prominent UP temple, donations are collected by pandas who operate in shifts. Money in donation boxes is then counted in the presence of government officials. A leader of the pandas at Vindhyachal said: “The only controversy related to counting in my memory is that of January 2016, when a person was caught stealing currency on camera and an FIR was immediately filed against him.” —With inputs by Maulshree Seth, Lucknow