RR Patil using racecourse tax to fund his PR, NCP activities

Charity begins at home for Home Minister R R Patil ndash literally In a clear case of abuse of discretionary powers vested in him Patil has been callously disbursing tax collected on horse racing in Mumbai to phoney public trusts and charity organisations with dubious grassroots credentialsmidday investigations establish that tax collected on wagering in horse racing at the Royal Western India Turf Club RWITC or Mahalaxmi Racecourse is being frittered away on charity organisations that have been fudging records to claim the donations by putting together a team of bogus trust members faulty audit reports and halfbaked utilisation certificates showing the money is used for social purposes none of which are ever vetted by a lethargic state home department mdash because the annual list of grants is directly approved by the home minister himselfWith no system in place to check how the money is being used the flybynight bodies are squandering the lsquoracecourse nidhi fundrsquo for personal and political gains rather than on social causes that they were ostensibly meant for mdash like training unemployed youth teaching skills to women educating poor children and giving pension to the elderly in rural MaharashtraOur investigations establish that almost all of these organisations which received funds from the home department in the past three years are either promoted or have a direct affiliation to the Nationalist Congress Party NCP as year after year Patil supported charities with a clear intention of building a cadre base for his party in western Maharashtra and areas of MarathwadaA handful of trusts recommended by the Shiv Sena politicians were considered for grants in this period In stark contrast scores of trusts in the name of Patil himself his mother Bhagirathi senior leaders such as Ajit Pawar and those managed by senior NCP leaders received chunks of the fundsThe government rules do not allow repetition of grant to a trust within a period of three years But many NCPaffiliated trusts have been beneficiaries in consecutive years in the past three years In Sangli Patilrsquos hometown as many as 11 trusts of the 140 that got grants last year were repeatedOf the 217 proposals submitted by trusts in 2013 about 174 mdash nearly 80 per cent mdash were endorsed in writing by NCP ministers MLAs district presidents secretaries and panchayat members These when forwarded to Patil were approved with alarming alacrity About 30 were from INC remaining 11 were from Independent and RPI members only two from Shiv Senamiddayrsquos investigations show that party leaders at the district level have created a nexus they endorse proposals from these trusts and in return pocket a neat 10 per cent of the grant amount as lsquocommissionrsquo This has spawned a miniindustry of party members and racketeers who simply draw up proposals every year and submit it to the home ministry in the hope that money would come through in the name of charity When officials find flaws in the proposal Patil himself overrides their discretion For example a trust wanted R200000 to buy an ambulance but was turned away by senior officials who sensed something fishy ldquoBut the home minister himself overruled objections raised by an undersecretary twice The disagreement eventually reached the additional chief secretary home who was forced to toe the ministerrsquos linerdquo said a senior officialThe Maharashtra government collects in revenue nearly R40 crore in taxes on wagering in horse races including rent property tax and licence fee from the RWITC Annually a chunk of this around R12 crore is left at the discretion of Patil to be distributed to charitable organisations desirable of bringing about social change across rural MaharashtraThe amounts range from R50000 to R15 lakhHome sweet homeAt the Kavathemhankal village in Sangli district Dwitambar Bapusondadersquos voice resonates in his dimly lit hut unmindful of the patter of the raindrops on his roof Bapusondade is the leader of a local tamasha troupe which travels to villages and sings folk songs that glorify mdash R R Patil Bapusondade is excited about his latest composition which is set to debut on August 16 his herorsquos birthday ldquoPatil R R Bijli Cha Avatar Bhashanala Dhar mdash Jasi Bhawani Talwarrdquo R R Patil is the incarnation of lightning his speech is as sharp as Goddess Bhawanirsquos swordWhile one cannot discount the stupendous work done by tamasha troupes in propagating social messages this is a dubious facet that goes along with itFor the past two years Bapusondadersquos troupe has received a grant of R150000 from the tax corpus collected on horse racing at Mumbairsquos Mahalaxmi Racecourse The money sanctioned for the Kai Bapu Dagdu Loknatya Sanstha was to be used for purchasing musical instruments and propagating social issues through traditional folk songs But neither of the two purposes was ever met The troupe did buy the instruments but submitted fudged bills to a private auditor mdash who endorsed it without any checks They showed actual expenses of R151105 but when we obtained the bills from auditor Bhosale Wangikar amp Parannawar the cost of instruments were found inflated by as much as 53 per cent Of the seven instruments the troupe has shown as costing R72000 dealers said they could be obtained for R45000ldquoI know half of these trusts who are obtaining audit reports from me for the racecourse nidhi are not genuine they rely on bogus bills fudged records But there is little I can do because of their political connections even as my heart aches in avoiding a physical verification in these cases I have to give financial endorsements to all of them for a meagre R300rdquo confessed Shriniwas Bhosle at his office on MirajSangli RoadDue to dry spells and other impediments in this agriculturedriven village Bapusondade and troupe work only for four months in a year The remaining days are spent in promoting the lsquogood workrsquo done by R R Patil in the villages of Shirdhone ldquoI am his Patilrsquos devoted follower and party worker and through our tamasha promote his policies and work during his birthdays and months leading to the electionsrdquo he told middayA few kilometres away in Agalgaon where Patilrsquos mother Bhagirathi lived her initial life a school in her name run by his cousin Maruti has received a racecourse grant worth R50000 that was disbursed to the Loknete R R Patil Bahudeshiya Sevabhavi Sansthan on May 23 2014 Its president is Shamrao Jadhav an active youth leader of NCP and a close confidant of Patil Two months after receiving the amount Jadhav forgot the poor and socially backward for whom the money was meant ldquoHe has been Patilsahebrsquos shadow for so long and got nothing Now he has bought land adjoining our house with this moneyrdquo his mother Kalawati confessed to usCanrsquot lsquotrustrsquo themWhile rules make it mandatory for trusts to submit a utilisation certificate in a monthrsquos time to the government to prove that the money was spent for the intended cause Jadhav is waiting for August 16 ldquoI may eventually use it for promoting Aabarsquos Patil work on August 16 his birthdayrdquo he said In his proposal submitted to the government on February 7 Jadhav had requested the racecourse funds to ldquoorganise training programmes for the poor backward castes and unemployed youth in the villagerdquo They are still awaiting these sessionsSeveral NCP members and close associates of Patil in Agalgaon Desingh Yogewadi Tasgaon run public trusts that seemingly exist as Patilrsquos PR bodies mdash promoting his ideologies ldquoIt is important to take his ideas important decisions such as dance bar and gutka bans vyasan mukti to his supporters here in his pocket borough We regularly chat with him to decide the future course on how his philosophy can be promoted through our trustsrdquo said Yashwant Balasaheb the president of Nalanda Magasvargiya Sansthan which received R15 lakh in 2012 Balasahebrsquos name features again this year on the grant list ldquoMost of the previous funds were used in organising events staged to promote Aabarsquos philosophyrdquo he told middayAmidst all this the local charity commissionerrsquos office paints a sorry picture saying no audits of these bodies have been carried out in a decade The office refused to furnish details to this paper despite an RTI application seeking urgent inspection of its records ldquoOnly 10 per cent of these NGOs are using funds for genuine reasons Even then newer ones are springing up every day to claim easy funds under the racecourse nidhi Somewhere the government must put a cap on this industry or approve requests passed by the common consensus of the local panchayatArbitrary allotment of funds has spawned a racket in these partsrdquo said R S Dudhale accounts officer Public Trust Registration Office SangliAll in the partyNearly 540 kilometres away from Mumbai at Khamgaon in Buldhana district the Mahalaxmi racecourse fund is a big draw for all those eager to make a quick buck The modus operandi is simple mdash local NCP leaders are willing to draft proposals for any potential social project with a distinct possibility of getting shortlisted for a grant Thereafter private auditors are willing to give easy affiliation for cheap money Vijay Kashiram Chopde taluka president of NCPrsquos youth wing provides this service at a 10 per cent commission If the proposal gets approved by the home department he gets to keep 10 per cent of the approved amount We found that in the first week of July Chopde submitted in a single day a total of 13 proposals from the area to the governmentWhen we approached him by posing as a charity organisation from Mumbai apparently interested in setting up a perfunctory trust in Buldhana he opened up easily ldquoJust get a trust registered Irsquoll draft a proposal and get fudged bills and bogus audit reports for you The members for your body can be sourced from the NCP cadrerdquo he inadvertently revealed to this reporterChopdersquos trust availed of R30000 last year in this manner Of this by his own candid confession he blew away R10000 in bursting crackers ldquowhen an NCP upadhyaksh won a local poll last yearrdquo and buying alcohol for party workers Of the 13 trust proposals he had submitted many were being run by NCP workers According to him the trusts shuffled common members among themselves In some cases while the husband remained as the president in another the wife was made a dummy incharge ldquoThe trusts of our party workers Joshi Wankhede others were all created with this same modus operandirdquo Chopde addedThis practice of shuffling members and creating dummy organisations has gained currency in these parts in the absence of any monitoring system One such example is the approval given to Poonam Mahila Bahudeshiya Sansthan and Shri Sant Sena Maharaj Mahila Bahuudeshiya Trust Last year these two trusts mdash backed by NCP leader from Amravati Vijay Bhaise mdash received grants Herersquos the catch While one trust has Vandana Talkhande as president and Lata Dilip Ambalkar as secretary the duo retained control of the second trust by fudging names and signaturesSimply put Lata is also the president in second trust but was registered as Lata Pradeep Ambalkar Vandana remained a member under the name Vandana Dadarao Talkhande Both bodies sought R500000 from the racecourse fund and received a chunk of it in the same year The fudging went unnoticed in government recordsOnce the money is claimed the party worker of the president organises a camp or lsquoshibirrsquo inviting locals for free foodHe takes pictures of this event and submits them as proof for the next yearrsquos proposal ldquoLast year most of my trustrsquos money was used in party activities How else do we keep the cadre enthused at a time when there is a Modi wave in the country By distributing sweets bursting crackers and distributing money to party workers from this fundrdquo explained Shailesh Ghodke head of NCP OBC Cell Paithan taluka Godke has applied for grants again this year after getting R30000 last yearFudging galoreThe audit reports of over 200 trusts obtained by this paper under the Right to Information RTI Act clearly show a deviation from standard accounting practices Surplus funds are shown as lsquoAnamatrsquo mdash better known as unsecured loans None of the trust audits had provided the list of where and how these loans were sourced from a mandatory requirement under the lawldquoThis lsquoAnamatrsquo is nothing but surplus donation money that has remained in the account books because of nonutilisation mdash again brought into accounting books as unsecured loansrdquo said an auditor from Solapur who claimed he was insisting on trusts claiming money under racecourse nidhi to furnish an lsquoAnamat listingrsquoWhen we contacted I A Shaikh an auditor who has authorised scores of financial reports of trusts claiming money from racecourse funds he said he would lsquotake care of all the hurdlesrsquo ldquoIrsquoll provide you with all the audits even if your books are not in order under section 33 and 34 of Bombay Public Trust Actrdquo he assuredIn the name of charitygtgt Ajit Foundation Agalgaon set up in the name of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar received a grant of R50000 last year from the racecourse fund This year too its president M Nimbalkar has applied for a grant of R350000 All seven trust members are active NCP workers and their basic activity is to promote the work of Pawar Junior ldquoWe all take pride in his dashing politics and during elections even turn the trust office into an election war room just for Ajit Dadardquo says Nimbalkar whose trusts also distribute letters to villagers urging them to pledge support to Ajit Pawar during electionsgtgt Janiv Lok Vikas Sansthan Parbhani obtained money under the racecourse funds last year but its president Ashok Upande spent a chunk of it on functions promoting policies of Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule He is an active supporter of NCPgtgt NCPrsquos Satish Chavan nominated Samrat Ashok Gramin Magasvargiya Sansthan for R1000000 The NGO submitted its proposal on August 14 2013 A dummy proposal with different members but the same scheme is submitted on August 15gtgt Saibaba Alpsankhyak Vikas Samaj from Jalgaon which also received grants published banners thanking Sharad Pawargtgt While some organisations do actually work for the cause they espouse being in the NCP is a huge advantage NCP MLA Vikram Kalersquos relative V S Kale runs Mahant Kailasgiri Baba Gymnasium at Aurangabad which received a grant under the racecourse fund last year ldquoHe is my brother and makes it easy to access this fund Due to this many members in the trust too are related to himrdquo said the cousin NCPrsquos Aurangabad district leader Khaisar Pathan started the Ramabai Ambedkar Bahuudeshiya Sansthana few years ago and sought R434 lakh under the racecourse fund He got a chunk from the Home Ministry174Number of proposals endorsed by NCP leaders last year of which many received grants217Total number of proposals submitted last year