Did IskCon play on rich family’s sentiments?

The Hegdes, who once owned the land on Kanakapura Road where Iskcon's Krishna Leela theme park is coming up, say they sold it cheap thinking it would be used for a kitchen for poor children

Did IskCon play on rich family's sentiments?

The Hegdes, who once owned the land on Kanakapura Road where Iskcon's Krishna Leela theme park is coming up, say they sold it cheap thinking it would be used for a kitchen for poor children

MiD DAY's investigation of the land row between Congress leader D K Shivakumar and Iskcon led to Rashmi Gopi-Hegde, a dancer who runs the Shankara Foundation on Kanakapura Road.

She accused Karnataka State Finance Corporation (KSFC) of favouring Iskcon at the cost of her family, and Iskcon of playing on her mother's sentiments and buying land cheap from her.

Rashmi is the daughter of Shankara Hegde, who ran Hegde & Golay, a watch factory, on land he acquired from Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board in 1971.

Iskcon-built apartments on Kanakapura Road. PIC/ RAMESH HS

Hedge wound up the company in the 1980s, following which the Karnataka State Finance Corporation confiscated the property in lieu of a Rs 5-crore loan.

"Though the decree amount was Rs 11 crore, the land was auctioned for Rs 27 crore. The KSFC didn't give us the rest of the money," Rashmi said.

No man's land

ISK-CON?: Rashmi Gopi-Hegde alleges that Iskcon got her family's landu00a0 cheaply, claiming it was for a noble cause

Of the 41 acres KIADB had granted to Hegde & Goley, only 27 had been used for the industry and the rest set aside for infrastructure.

When KSFC seized the property, it couldn't take away the land allocated for infrastructure.

Thus, 17 acres remained with the Hegde family. The Shankara Foundation is housed on four of these acres.

When the 27 acres came up for auction in 2004, Iskcon outbid Shivakumar, Sringeri Matt and others.

Rashmi said Iskcon then approached her mother Shaila Hegde to acquire eight acres that remained with the family.

"They prevailed upon my mother to sell the land to them. We did not realise the commercial value of the land then, and gave it away cheap," she said. Her mother sold it to Iskcon because they had told her it would be used for a noble cause the Akshayapatra mid-day meal scheme to feed poor students.
"But I have not seen any such activities on that piece of land," Rashmi added.

'We paid more'

Refuting the charges, Chanchalapathi Das, vice-president of Iskcon, said, "It is wrong to say we purchased the land cheap. Shaila Hegde gave us the land only after we paid many times more than the market rate."

He said the Akshayapatra kitchen had been built on a nearby site, while the seven acres bought from Shaila Hegde had been set aside for later development.

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