Officials still preparing inventory at Satya Sai Baba's Whitefield hermitage

Bangalore, July 20 (ANI): Trustees of the late Sathya Sai Baba along with a team sent by the Urban District Deputy Commissioner, continue to prepare an inventory of the wealth and assets in the 'Brindavanam' hermitage at Whitefield on the outskirts of Bangalore.

The search operation started on Wednesday under the supervision of District Commissioner M K Aiyappa.

Ananat Raman, media coordinator of the Sathya Sai Baba Trust, told reporters that the inventory would take place for the four properties of Baba, including Trayee Bhawan, Sri Ramesh Krishan Ashram, Brindavanam and Kalyana Mandapam.

"Procedure will be, this is the inventory being conducted in all the premises of Sathya Sai Establishment Institutions. The inventory is being conducted by the trust as part of our exercise. We have asked government officials to come and be present as observers and at our request they have come. We have completed the exercise in Prasanthi Nilayam completely over four different places (Trayee Bhawan, Sri Ramesh Krishan Ashram, Brindavanam and Kalyana Mandapam)," said Raman.

Over a dozen police officials were present during the inventory process at the 'Brindavanam' hermitage.

Raman further said that followers of the Baba donated the treasures that were found by the officials during the inventory.

"When swami (Sathya Sai Baba) was alive, lot of people gave personal gift articles to him which was kept in swami's procession. So now, we are taking them all in the inventory so that we can use them. When swami was there, you (people used to) give Prasad (offerings) to Swami, he will accept it, and he will keep it. It's not part of the property to be used by anybody. It's a personal gift given to him out of affection by his devotees. Now all those, we will take them out, inventory them, take them in our books and we will start using them, if it is cash, we'll put them use them in, use them for a purposes," he said.

Members of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust had asked the Karnataka Government to depute officials to examine the items that the Sathya Sai Baba had used.

A similar inventory was carried out on July 2 in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, in which officials found treasure worth 76.89 lakhs rupees (7.6 million).

Many other inventory checks were conducted in June.

The 86-year old spiritual leader passed away on April 24. Sathya Sai Baba is believed to be the reincarnation of 19th century spiritual leader Sai Baba of Shirdi in Maharashtra and had millions of devotees across the world. (ANI)