Times of India: Goa: Friday, April 27, 2018.
The
opposition, Congress, on Thursday demanded that both Goa University and its
vice chancellor Varun Sahni must explain to the people of the state the wasteful
expenditure by a cash-starved university for renting out an accommodation for
Sahni despite having an official bungalow.
“The Times of
India carried an exhaustive story on this issue. There must be some hidden
reason why he (Sahni) is staying there. The university should explain to the
people, because this is people’s money being used here,” former Rajya Sabha MP
and outgoing Congress state unit president Shantaram Naik said.
“On one side,
the university officials are struggling to get additional finance from the Goa
government. While on the other side, the VC is squandering university money.
What is the logic behind this?” Naik asked.
In its Sunday
edition, TOI had front-paged how Goa University, despite having an official
bungalow for its vice chancellor, was paying Rs 9 lakh per year for Sahni’s
ostentatious sea-facing apartment.
Despite
repeated emails, Sahni had refused to answer questions that TOI put to him.
In response
to RTI queries by TOI, the university had said they decided to rent a fully-furnished,
four-bedroom apartment at Dona Paula overlooking the sea for Rs 9 lakh per
annum for Sahni. The RTI documents also showed that the university had spent
over Rs 22 lakh to spruce up the existing sea-facing VC’s bungalow over the
years.
“Sahni must
explain why he opted for rented premises and he should also explain why did the
university pay a brokerage fee of Rs 75,000 to find a rented accommodation for
him,” Naik said.
When Sahni
moved into his sea-facing rented apartment paid for by Goa University, he
became the first VC in the university’s history since early nineties when the
university constructed a bungalow for its vice chancellor to have taken a house
on rent despite having an official residence at his disposal.
All former
VCs have stayed at the fully-furnished official residence, barring Satish
Shetye, who opted to stay in his own home that was near the university campus.
The Goa
University’s reason for shifting Sahni to a rented flat was that the official
residence needed major renovation. But from June 2013 to December 2017,
renowned visitors to the Goa University, that included environmentalist Madhav
Gadgil and musician Santiago Lusardi Girelli, were made to stay at the VC’s
official residence.
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