VMC move angers donors

Contributions to the fund came from individuals, schools, hotels, and many businesses. School children and teachers, especially, had gone door to door to collect donations for the relief fund. About Rs 9 lakh from the collection went to the cyclone victims in the form of a van and some `utility kits’, but the rest VMC wants to use for the city.

Kishan Sheth, chairman of the Vadodara Municipal Primary Education Committee, which runs the city’s municipal schools, is furious. “Our children and teachers had taken pains for the collection. And we had set aside Rs 6 lakh from the collection specifically for school buildings in Jamnagar that had been damaged by the cyclone,” he says.

What hurts people like Sheth is the fact that while the mayor has spoken to opposition leaders in the corporation about the decision to freeze the funds, people who contributed have heard of it only from the newspapers.

Says Sheth, “We have not been told officially and hence we will write to the Mayor.”

And Manubhai Patel, a former MP who is president of the Baroda School Management Association, says, “If the amount has been donated, it doesn’t mean the amount is VMC’s. They should have taken the major donors into confidence.”

Patel says, “Even if the cyclone victims had received enough in relief money, this collection could have been handed over to them. Or, the amount should have been given to either the Prime Minister’s or Chief Minister’s Relief Funds.”

Harshad Patel, the principal of Alembic Vidyalaya, which contributed Rs 1.4 lakh, says, “The money should have been used for the purpose for which it was collected. Donors should have been taken into confidence if it was being put to other use.”

There are other suggestions for how the money could have been used. Says Jayendra Shah, managing trustee of the Bright Education Trust, which contributed Rs 1.01 lakh, “Why can’t the money be given to the families of Indian soldiers who lost their lives in the Kargil conflict? If donors aren’t taken into confidence, in future VMC will not get the necessary support.”

However, the opposition leaders in the VMC do not seem to raise objection. Says Congress leader Kanchanbhai Parmar, “We don’t mind if the amount is used locally. After all it is for a cause.”

As for the mayor, she says, “There is no question of taking the donors into question. It is not as if we have used up the money. Now also, it is going to be utilised for a cause.”

Civic sources say that VMC would soon formulate a guideline on how to use the amount. But then, whose money is it anyway?