The police have clamped prohibitory orders in Puttaparthi of Anantapur district as thousands of devotees thronged the town on news that godman Sathya Sai Baba continued to be in a critical condition.
Vital organs of Sai Baba, who has been admitted to the Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, were stated to be not responding to treatment despite frantic efforts of medical experts at the super speciality hospital.
Worshiped as a living god by his devotees worldwide, 85-year-old Sai Baba is revered for launching various schemes, particularly the drinking water scheme, for the benefit of the people in the parched Rayalaseema region.
Known as someone who considered the value of wealth and assets only in their utility to serve mankind, Baba, according to the people in the know, was never hesitant to sell the assets owned by his Trust to fund the water schemes when the actual expenditure ran beyond the initial estimates. He even planned to sell the Puttaparthi airport, which is a Trust's property. However, it did not materialise for want of a right price.
The Sathya Sai Trust is said to have raised Rs 100 crore loan from Canara Bank to fund rural drinking water supply projects in Anantapur district. According to one estimate, Sai Baba spent over Rs 1,500 crore on drinking water supply schemes in Rayalaseema, Mahabubnagar and Medak districts in Telangana and East and West Godavari districts in coastal Andhra regions.
The trust had also executed lining and modernisation of the canal meant to supply drinking water to Chennai from the Kandaleru Reservoir in Andhra Pradesh, while the Tamil Nadu government had earlier done excavation works on the canal.
Apart from this, the Trust runs three educational institutions — two in Anantapur district and one in Bangalore — besides the super speciality hospital at Puttaparthi, among others. Poor patients used to flock the hospital for free heart surgeries before the state government launched its popular Arogyasri community health insurance scheme, which gave them access to all the top corporate hospitals in the state. Sai Baba’s trust had made a fixed deposit of Rs 170 crore in the name of the hospital, which in turn uses the interest money to run the services.
“Till the deterioration of his health, Baba had a firm grip over the financial matters of the Trust, including the cheque powers, and invested every penny wisely in activities that served the larger cause of people. He never spent on building useless assets,” a senior IPS officer told Business Standard.
Every month about 2,000-3,000 people visit Prashanthi Nilayam, the abode of Sai Baba, to do free service there. The Trust allots a ten-day slot to each devotee to do simple things like gardening and cleaning at the premises, while academicians and doctors extend voluntary services in the institutions. The Trust allows people from one particular state in a month to do voluntary service, according to the devotees.
“Human service, especially value-oriented education, humane medical service and service orientated occupations was his contribution to mankind. It would be difficult to present this model across the countries in one's life time,” L V Subrahmanyam, principal secretary, department of finance, who has been sent to Puttaparthi as state government emissary, said.
While he was choosy in accepting donations from high-profile individuals, he has powerful politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and foreigners among his devotees. Visit of Indian Prime Ministers, Presidents and top industrialists to Prashanthi Nilayam during the convocation ceremony of Sathya Sai university and Baba's birthday was a matter of routine practice, though there were also a few controversies centered around him.
