BLACK MONEY REPOSITORIES
Prof Dr P Chandra Sekharan
The recent happenings in Puttaparthi Sai Baba’s Ashram proved beyond doubt that it is one of the biggest repositories of black money. This should be an eye opener to the government to realise that there are many such repositories in the country in the form of several religious cultural and spiritual Ashrams and foundations.
While a petty shop man who sells candies and cigarettes are covered by the tax canvas and required to declare his income and pay tax, why not spiritual gurus and yogis who sell spiritualism and yoga and earn big money and own huge estates, mansions, islands, posh cars and aircrafts are exempted from the tax net. Just like spectrum is managed by the state, spiritualism and yoga which are the ancient cultural treasure of this country and to be considered as national assets. The Government in the ministry of culture and heritage have to regulate and monitor these assets since they have become big money earning commodities in the world market.
It is explicit that many spiritual and yoga foundations are in fact big business houses extending their trade world over. The government should know about the set-up and details of income of these business ventures as well as the list of those who dump their black money in the form of secret deposits and donations.
The black money that has been sunken in these institutions would be much more as compared to those with Swiss and other foreign banks. I compliment the Government of Andhra Pradesh for withdrawing all the sixteen exemptions given to Puttaparthi Ashram. The other State Governments should follow suit and take similar actions against the Ashrams and Foundations that sell our heritage and amass huge wealth. The Government of India should simultaneously take steps to recover the black money from these institutions.
