Visva-Bharati to pay part of security deposit to Poush Mela traders

Authorities of Visva-Bharati university will refund 30 per cent of the remaining 50 per cent of the security deposit taken from traders, who had put up stalls during Pous Mela last year. The authorities of the central university said since it has to pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the West Bengal Pollution Control Board for non-compliance of environmental norms by some stall owners during the fair, it would be able to pay a part of the security money.

Kolkata:Visva-Bharati authorities have said the university will refund 30 per cent of the remaining 50 per cent of the security deposit taken from traders, who had put up stalls during Pous Mela last year, as the institute has to meet expenses for violation of environmental norms by some vendors during the annual fair.

The traders' association, Bolpur Byabasayee Samity, said the university authorities had returned only 50 per cent of the security money to their members.

The traders' body had been at loggerheads with the university over delay in refund of the remaining security deposit paid before the commencement of the fair in December last year.

However, the authorities of the central university said since it has to pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the West Bengal Pollution Control Board for non-compliance of environmental norms by some stall owners during the fair, it would be able to pay a part of the security money.

In a notice issued on Tuesday, Visva-Bharati authorities said, "After calculating the expenses, it has been resolved in consultation with Santiniketan Trust to pay 30 per cent out of remaining 50 per cent of the total security money that has been kept on hold."

The university also alleged that "there were six individuals (a former councillor, his son and wife and another three individuals) who, through their respective individual bank accounts, booked a total of 64 stalls" among them.

"This was a violation of the rules, according to which a single bank account is permitted to book only one stall: this was on the basis of our "one-account-one-stall" policy," the notice said.

A spokesman of Byabasayee Samity said they would not accept the "meagre amount".

Nearly two months after deciding to call off over a century-old Poush Mela, Visva-Bharati authorities had recently said the central university is ready to organise the fair if it gets financial help from the Union government.

Visva-Bharati authorities had on July 4 decided to scrap the fair citing its "bitter experience" of the last two years in organising the winter carnival in Santiniketan amid a tussle with traders on making them comply with environmental guidelines.

Unhappy with Visva-Bharati''s decision to call off Poush Mela, the local traders'' body on August 15 prevented the university authorities from erecting a boundary wall around the fairground. Two days later, thousands of locals ransacked the property of the institute and tore down a gate to protest against the fencing work.

Poush Mela is a handicraft, handloom, art and music festival held in the Bengali month of Poush, usually December-end. Rabindranath Tagore''s father Maharshi Debendranath Tagore first organised the fair in 1894 and Visva-Bharati, the university founded by the Nobel laureate, started organising it from 1951.

PTI