The Maharashtra charity commissioner has issued show cause notices to 1,30,000 lakh trusts and de-registered 60,000 others for violating the Maharashtra Public Trust Act, The Times of India reported on Wednesday. Charity Commissioner SG Dige has also decided to take action against charitable hospitals which fail to provide treatment at a reasonable cost to poor patients.
As many as 14,853 trusts in Nagpur have been deregistered, followed by 8,613 in Latur, 7,528 in Nashik, 6,966 in Aurangabad and 5,167 in Pune. In Mumbai, 4,498 trusts face deregistration.
Maharashtra has around 8 lakh registered trusts under the Public Trust Act. Of these, 3,95,530 trusts are actually in existence, the local daily Loksatta reported. However, many of them are not operational, and some which conduct activities do not follow the rules.
Some of the rules trusts need to follow include providing the government a list of trustees and the organisation’s objectives. Trusts also have to submit an audit report. Dige has sent notices to around 1,90,000 trusts for not submitting audit reports and/or a list of trustees, Loksatta said.
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