According to rules, gold articles should have been auctioned during Vijayadashami and Guru Poornima, and the remaining gold articles are sent to Mumbai for melting, but there was no auction since 2009.
Millions of devotees, rich and poor, visit the Shirdi Sai Baba shrine every year and donate money and gold articles in the form of gold crown, gold throne, gold utensils and other articles made of gold.
The amount of gold donations has been so high that parts of the wall of the shrine has been gold-plated.
Yashwant Mane, deputy executive officer of Shirdi Sai Sansthan told India TV that the report of major loss while melting gold articles was misleading and baseless. He claimed that the process of preserving gold donated to the shrine was transparent.
