Moily’s son denies any wrongdoing in receiving funds. Family trust...

Mangalore Today/ DHNS

Bangalore, March 19: In the eye of a storm over receiving grants from a corporate giant when his father M Veerappa Moily was the Corporate Affairs Minister, Harsha Moily today said his company received funds from "professional investors" before Moily senior joined the government.

He also said his family trust received only Rs 42 lakh as donations from corporates and not Rs 6 crore as reported.

"It is important to note that MokshaYug Access India Pvt Ltd (MYA) received funding from professional investors in 2008, much before my father joined the government," Harsha Moily, Founder and CEO of MYA, said in a statement.

"MYA’s investors did due diligence on MYA through the most part of 2007, and the funding from VCs (venture capitalists) came through in March 2008," he said.

Moily senior was made the Law Minister when UPA-II came to power in 2009 and he was shifted to the Corporate Affairs Ministry in 2011.

 

On ITC funding the family trust, Kissan Sabha Trust, Harsha said the Trust has not received any funding of Rs 6 crore as was being reported.

"As a practice, budget requirements are drawn to understand the funding requirements to run educational institutions for underprivileged poor and school dropouts. The estimation for a yearly operating expenditure was worked out at Rs 50 lakhs a year.

"A corpus to ensure yearly interest receipt was worked out at Rs 6 crore to yield Rs 50 lakhs at 8 per cent interest per annum. The estimation of creating a corpus is an accounting exercise," he said, adding "the Trust has not received any funding of Rs 6 crore."

"It has been granted Rs 42 lakhs to fund the operating expenditure for the year though the operating expenditure is higher and is met from donations from the public," he added.
On the role of Reliance Industries executive Ananth Ravi, Harsha said during his days at RIL between 1999 and early 2002, he came in contact with Ravi and built a personal relationship with him.

"He (Ravi) played a mentorship role in MYA during the period he wasn’t employed at Reliance between December 2011 to July 2012. He excused himself from the advisory board upon rejoining Reliance in August 2012. Accordingly, we removed his name from MYA’s website a few months ago," Harsha added.

 

Moily’s family-run trust accused of encroaching on govt land

BJP Yuva Morcha State president V Sunil Kumar has alleged that a college of Kissan Sabha Trust, run by members of Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily’s family, was collecting donations from students and has also encroached upon a piece of government land in Karkala in Udupi district.


Addressing the media here on Tuesday, Kumar, along with BJP legislator Ashwathnarayan, said the Trust got land in Kukkundur village of Karkala in 1991-92 and again in 1995-96 when Moily was a minister in the State government. The total extent of land is 4.90 acres. Records show that in violation of norms, gomala land was allotted to the Trust, he added.

Sunil Kumar, former MLA, will contest from Karkala as the BJP candidate in the coming elections.

Donations

A section of the media on Monday had published reports highlighting how the Trust run by Moily family had ‘raised’ crores of rupees in donations from ITC and Reliance under the corporate social responsibility projects.

The decade-old Trust has educational institutions in Karkala and Chikkaballapur. Moily, a former MLA from Karkala, is now MP from Chikkaballapur.

The Trust runs Mahatma Gandhi Residential School in Karkala. There are 115 students in DEd course and 50 per cent of the total seats are filled under the management quota. The fee collected from the students is Rs 25,000 a year.
 “The Trust, besides collecting fees, is also raising donations from various sources and, this is wrong,” Kumar alleged.

The Trust has not paid any tax to the Kukkundur gram panchayat for the past 13 years. Besides, the Trust has half-an-acre land in the Karkala municipality area.
Resignation sought

It has also encroached upon a quarter acre of the government land. A hall with a seating capacity of 300 has been constructed. This hall is used only for Congress-related programmes and others are barred from using it, Kumar alleged.

On Monday, Moily had announced in Mangalore that corrupt people would not get Congress tickets to contest polls.

“Now, Moily should set an example for others in his party. As he is facing corruption charges, he should not only resign as minister but also as MP,” Kumar remarked.
Asked why he was raising the issue now, the BJP leader said that he was unaware of the activities of the Trust till Tuesday morning.

“I learnt through the media that the Trust is raising money from corporate bodies.” Many Congress leaders remained incommunicado when Deccan Herald tried to get their reactions to the allegations against Moily.