At a time when the government has been taking measures to increase the revenue of the Telangana State Waqf Board, the Muslim Endowments Panel is grappling with locating funds to the tune of ₹100 crore.
The funds are compensation amount which the civic administration had given the Waqf Board after acquiring Waqf properties for work such as road widening and others.
“Whenever road widening and other work are taken up and properties of Waqf institutions are affected, the money should be routed through the board. We have found out that some mutawallis have directly received the compensation amount of ₹100 crore over a period of about two decades,” Telangana State Waqf Board Chairman Mohammed Saleem said here on Tuesday. The board would now investigate who the recipients of these funds were and contemplate the course of action for recovery. “We will ask those who have taken the money to return it,” Mr. Saleem said.
Earlier in the day, the board members and GHMC officials led by Commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy met at Razzack Manzil to discuss the issue of ₹350 crore compensation the civic body owes the board.
While Mr. Reddy did not comment on the issue and left early, Mr. Saleem said, “Of the ₹350 crore, the GHMC has to give the board around ₹215 crore directly. The other ₹100 crore has been paid to the mutawallis . We will sit with the GHMC and scrutinise the record of the properties.”
The board officials said that road widening has affected 54 Waqf properties.
Other issues on the board’s agenda included recruiting 50 young graduates and postgraduates to infuse new life into the organisation. “We need younger people to run the affairs. These will be graduates in finance and business administration,” Mr. Saleem said. And while a nod for from the government on recruitment is awaited, the board, on the other hand, extended the services of 18 retired employees for a period of three months.
