Blue Cross of India and Animal Welfare Board of India battle anonymous allegations

[Guest guest]

Blue Cross of India and Animal Welfare Board of India battle

anonymous allegations

 

 

CHENNAI--Complaints about the Animal Welfare Board of India

from politically well-connected but unsuccessful grant applicants may

have been behind a series of September 28, 2007 raids by the Central

Bureau of Investigation on the Blue Cross of India head office and

the homes of three Animal Welfare Board senior officials, Blue Cross

of India chief executive Chinny Krishna suggested to ANIMAL PEOPLE.

Krishna characterized the allegations published in the New

Indian Express following the raids as " vague, unsubstantiated, and

irresponsible. "

Said Krishna, " There have been allegations against the

officials of the Animal Welfare Board of India that grant moneys are

not being properly given. I was specifically told by a Mr.

Krishnamurthy of the CBI that there were some corruption charges

received against some board officials.

" To be fair to the officials, " Krishna said, " they process

the grants after the grants are approved by the Animal Welfare Board,

which consists of 28 people. However, inspections are carried out

by paid Board employees, " Krishna acknowledged.

The inspectors' recommendations help the Animal Welfare Board

members in their deliberations about which projects to fund, in what

amounts.

Unlike the Animal Welfare Board staff, the board members

serve without compensation.

" Considering that a total of about $2 million U.S. is divided

up among several hundred groups, there is not much to go around, "

Krishna observed.

New Indian Express writer K. Praveen Kumar alleged on

September 29, 2007, citing an unnamed " senior CBI official, " that

" The CBI anti-corruption bureau reportedly unearthed a major grant

misappropriation scam, " and " suspects the involvement of " the Blue

Cross.

But the only report about the raids was Kumar's, Krishna

said, as an ANIMAL PEOPLE search of Indian news media seemed to

confirm.

Kumar reported that the unnamed official said, " We are

examining the records seized from the raided premises, " and that the

anonymous official acknowledged that any specific allegations would

have to " be substantiated after validation of documents. "

No charges were immediately filed, or even mentioned as pending.

 

Who was raided

 

Krishna told ANIMAL PEOPLE that the raids, early on a Friday

morning, hit the former home of ex-Animal Welfare Board secretary R.

Balasubramanian, who now lives and works in New Delhi; the home of

present secretary K. Ramaswamy, who has served the Animal Welfare

Board in various capacities for about 30 years; and the home of

Animal Welfare Board member S. Ravindran.

In addition, Krishna said, " A team of CBI people came to

the Blue Cross and said that they wanted to see the files and papers

pertaining to the grants we received from the Animal Welfare Board of

India. During the six-hour search by five people, " Krishna

recounted, " the only discrepancy they found was that a certificate

given by Ambattur municipality for one quarter stated that over 400

dogs had been spayed and vaccinated by the Blue Cross, whereas our

chief veterinarian Dr. T. P. Sekar certified only around 200 dogs in

the totals we furnished to the Board.

" It was pointed out that we gave a lesser number, " Krishna

continued. " The CBI official wanted to know why, and I told him

that this question should be directed at the Ambattur municipality. "

While the Blue Cross claimed to have done fewer

sterilizations than Ambattur said were done, K. Praveen Kumar in an

October 1 follow-up quoted his anonymous source as alleging that

humane societies " conduct Animal Birth Control on limited numbers of

dogs and then create documents to prove that they have done it on a

larger number and collect extra money. "

Continued Kumar, " According to highly placed sources in the

CBI, they have got substantial evidence about the mis-utilization of

Central Government grants by the majority " of participants in the

national Animal Birth Control program. "

The allegations parallel claims made by public officials in

Bangalore and Hyderabad earlier in 2007, after several fatal attacks

by dogs in areas not actually within the service radius of any ABC

programs brought a hue-and-cry for dismantling the local ABC programs

and resuming killing dogs.

Illiterates are allowed to vote in India. Before the

introduction of ABC, hiring dogcatchers was an important source of

patronage jobs for office holders cultivating illiterate support.

But despite the open eagerness of some of the Bangalore and

Hyderabad populists to put dog-killers back on the payroll, no

mismanagement or misuse of funds by any of the Bangalore and

Hyderabad nonprofit Animal Birth Control programs was ever documented.

In the ten years since the Animal Birth Control approach

became Indian national policy, significant corruption has been

documented only in ABC programs managed by municipal governments.

 

Icebergs in India?

 

" The fund mis-utilization by the Blue Cross is tip of an

iceberg, " Kumar further quoted the anonymous alleged senior CBI

official, without actually identifying any " fund mis-utilization. "

" We have got enough material to show that many such

organizations have been indulging in similar activities, " Kumar

further quoted the anonymous official. " Our Cochin unit officers

raided the People for Animals office at Thiruvananthapuram, " for

example, where supposedly " the PfA members diverted the grant

allocated for animal shelter construction and used it for their own

house construction.

" We suspect large-scale diversion and misappropriation of

such grants in many Chennai-based organizations also, " the official

added, apparently unaware that Chinny Krishna's house and the homes

of his immediate family have all been in his family for generations,

on land the family has held for centuries, while the heads of the

other Chennai Animal Birth Control programs live in apartments.

The premises of PfA-Trivandrum in Thiruvanathapuram " have

been inspected by many people from the Board, " Krishna responded in

their defense. " It is possible that the building is not as per their

original design. However, I would be extremely surprised and

shocked to find any misappropriation. "

A different animal welfare charity in Thiruvanathapuram,

Animal Rights Kerala, headed by Avis Lyons, in September 2006

trained 25 Thiruvanathapuram dogcatchers to assist the local ABC

program. Instead, the dogcatchers were redirected into killing

dogs. Lyons responded with public denunciations.

But PfA-Trivandrum has mostly avoided the crossfire.

" The Blue Cross has nothing to hide, " Krishna added. " We

can categorically state that we have given nothing to any official of

the Animal Welfare Board for any grants sanctioned. In fact, we

have been consistently given 75 rupees less on each dog we have

spayed than the 445 rupees we are supposed to get, since we are not

paid for the catching and transportation component. Dogs caught

outside the Madras corporation limits account for about 50% of the

dogs we fix, " Krishna explained.

" These dogs are caught, transported and returned by our

vehicles and staff. Only those dogs caught by the city inside the

city limits are caught by the city dog catchers, " Krishna said,

" and even these dogs are returned to their original locations by the

Blue Cross staff, using our vehicles.

" Most importantly, " Krishna said, " we were funded by the

Animal Welfare Board for only a portion of the Animal Birth Control

program work we have done. In 2006-2007, " for example, " they

funded 7,000 surgeries, " Krishna said, " but we did close to 10,000

in Chennai and suburbs, not including the 4,500 we did in

Kanchipuram.

Some Indian animal welfare organizations are chiefly funded

by government grants, Krishna acknowledged, but grants to the Blue

Cross amount to barely more than a sixth of the total organizational

budget, and less than half of the total cost of the Blue Cross's

Animal Birth Control program.

 

Flying monkeys

 

Krishna declined to comment on the record about the timing of

the CBI raids, which came about two weeks after he prominently

criticized a government plan to breach Ram Sethu, or Adam's Bridge,

an underwater rock formation linking India to Sri Lanka. Krishna

pointed out, as many others have, that Ram Sethu helped to break

the force of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Promoted by the Congress Party, which presently heads the

Indian federal government, the breach would cut about 30 hours and

considerable fuel use from the itineraries of coastal cargo vessels.

But it would also considerably alter the aquatic ecology of the

strait between India and Sri Lanka, and would be considered an act

of sacrilege by many Hindus.

Controversy over the proposal reportedly could be a major

factor in forcing the Congress government to call early elections.

Tradition holds that Ram Sethhu was built by the Lord Rama

and his army of winged monkeys in Vedic times, on an expedition to

rescue Lord Rama's wife from a Sri Lankan kidnapper, as described in

the epic Ramayana.

While Ram Sethu may have begun as a chain of natural

limestone shoals, as the Congress government contends, it has been

above sea level at various times in recorded history, and there is

archaeological evidence that it was reinforced at some point by a

walled, paved causeway.

Breaching Ram Sethu, discussed for decades, has been

opposed by former federal environment minister and minister for

animal welfare Maneka Gandhi throughout her political career. Mrs.

Gandhi, who founded People for Animals in 1984, has long been

closely allied with Chinny Krishna and the Blue Cross.

Originally elected to the Indian Parliament as a member of

the Congress Party, Mrs. Gandhi later served as an independent

member, and is now a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya

Janata Party.

The BJP fiercely opposes breaching Ram Sethu, and has

regained political momentum from the issue after losing badly in the

most recent Indian national election.

Chinny Krishna's comments about Ram Sethu may carry

particular influence because of his prominence as one of the

engineers of the Indian space program, which traces symbolic origin

to Rama's winged monkey army, and because his wife Naditha Krishna

is a prominent Hindu scholar and archaeologist.

--Merritt Clifton

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

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Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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