Congress leader D.K. Shivakuamar, MLA, on Wednesday demanded that the Government withdraw the Karnataka Public Trust Bill, 2011 passed in the recent State legislature session, as it “harms the interests of investors in hospitals and colleges and the very concept of globalisation and liberalisation”.
Speaking to presspersons, he said the Bill envisaged submission of accounts once a year by educational and hospital managements, and a Trust Commissioner controls them.
Such controls and restrictions on those who were into “philanthropic work”, such as starting colleges and hospitals, was a violation of the Indian Trust Act, 1882, he said.
Mr. Shivakumar, who runs educational institutions in the city, said he decided to put on hold an educational project worth Rs. 50 crore after studying the “ill-effects” of the Bill.
‘Anti-development'
No State had enacted such an “anti-development” law, he said, and added that even Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and his Cabinet Ministers were ignorant of the passage of the Bill as it was pushed through amid pandemonium and Opposition boycott.
Several religious institutions, including those who were supporting the Yeddyurappa Government, also did not know that their colleges and hospitals would come under the purview of the Bill.
Mr. Shivakumar, a former Minister, alleged that the Bill was aimed at institutions run by Congress leaders such as him, maths and people belonging to the other backward classes, and his party would chalk out a programme to demand its withdrawal.
