Puttaparthi properties, hotels and transport

 

The property boom around Sathya Sai Baba ashrams is one of the sustaining factors of the Sai movement, having become the nub of a wide range of dependent estate agencies and all the services and workers which these involve. Hotels close to the Prashanthi Nilayam ashram, such as Sai Towers, have become super rich. The village populations of both Puttaparthi and Whitefield have profited vastly by the letting of rooms and properties, since the flow of foreign visitors has grown to many thousands per month. The Andhra Pradesh State and also Central government have given huge sums to the improvement of facilities – road improvement and bus stations, an airport, a dedicated railway along with major promotion of Sathya Sai Baba and his ashrams as a tourist attraction. (Puttaparthi railway station, Puttaparthi Sai Airport).All this is a question of power and money, which is the dominant factor in Sathya Sai’s activities altogether these days, despite his pretence of being a virtual renunciant and disinterested in any money or property. His younger brother, Janakiramiah, who V.K. Narasimhan told me masterminded through blackmail the execution by police of four assailants who were trapped in Sai Baba’s bedroom,  made a vast fortune from property speculation in Puttaparthi. Sathya Sai took Jankiramiah on the multi-billion dollar tax-exempt Sathya Sai Central Trust directly after this! (Read more ).

All this is one of the most noticeable effects of the Advent of this self-claimed “Avatar of Vishnu” – to boost local business, tourist traffic and donations to his mini-empire… Is this how he is saving humanity from catastrophe (as he has claimed he will)?