The Siddhivinayak managing committee has made such large donations to politically linked organisations, it hardly has any money left for its own work, a member of the panel said.
"We too want to set up educational institutions in the name of Siddhivinayak but we end up running short of funds," he said.
In 1980, the state government passed a law allowing it to take over the Siddhivinayak temple at Prabhadevi. Since then, ruling parties have shown a propensity for making political appointments to the managing committee. For example, after the Democratic Front government came to power, the entire eight-member committee was replaced by a seven-member committee in October 31, 2000. This was challenged in court by Vishakha Raut, one of the Shiv Sena appointees who found herself el-: bowed out. Other shortcomings are also apparent.
The committee's annual report
is published late every year because of the delay in submitting audit reports.
The audit report for 2000-'01 was submitted on May 14, 2002, while the
one for the previous year 1999-2000 was submitted on August 10, 2001.