Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has approached the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to exchange Rs 30.4 lakh in demonetised currency that it had received as donation from devotees.
The Centre had issued a notification to scrap the currency in the denomination of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 on November 8, 2016. The deadline to exchange or deposit these notes with the banks was fixed as December 31, 2016, but it was later extended up to March 31, 2017.
Though the SGPC got the donation amount received up to March 31, 2017 deposited in the bank, the banned notes continued to pour in till July 2017.
Blaming the ill-conceived policy and erroneous administrative decisions of his predecessor, SGPC chief secretary Dr Roop Singh said the efforts were on to get the demonetised notes exchanged with new currency through the RBI.
“When counted, the amount came to Rs 30.45 lakh. We have maintained a proper record of it, ascertaining that the money was received through donation by devotees. We received some old notes later also, but these were placed in the ‘Khote Sikke’ head. We have again written to the RBI Governor, appealing to him to get the money exchanged so that it could be put to use rather than getting wasted. A communication was sent to the RBI earlier too, but it never responded,” he said.
Citing an official circular issued under the signatures of the former Chief Secretary, Roop Singh said the SGPC had suffered a financial dent of nearly Rs 10 crore.
The reason being that a day after the demonetisation notification, a circular was released to all the SGPC-run gurdwara managements, including the Golden Temple, not to accept any donation in the demonetised currency, despite the fact that the currency could be exchanged till March 2017. He claimed that being a secretary then, he had contested it, but in vain.
An estimated 1 lakh pilgrims pay obeisance at the Golden Temple daily. On an average, nearly Rs 7 crore is offered in the sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple and the adjoining gurdwaras in the shrine complex.
Roop Singh said as the old currency was not being accepted between November 9 and March 31, 2016, there was a decline of at least 35 per cent in the donation amount at the Golden Temple complex.
Similarly, the revenue from the sale of ‘karah parshad’ and ‘pinni parshad’ dropped to Rs 2 lakh per day from Rs 6 lakh per day. Same was the fate of donations received at the langar (community kitchen).