His company does not accept fixed deposits or recurring deposits, nor has it offered debentures. It simply provides `services against advances', thus there is no obligation for the company to reimburse investors in case it winds up operations.

The `services' include purchase of a buffalo and tending it for a period of six years, all for an amount of Rs 50,000. The break-up is as follows: the price of a buffalo is estimated at Rs 20,000 (for which Kokate is trying to get insurance cover from either the UTI or LIC); the investor will be allotted a post-dated National Savings Certificate for Rs 15,000, which will allow the amount to double in six years (thereby securing the remaining Rs 30,000).

The remaining Rs 15,000 will be invested in his diaryproject while the investor will get a monthly interest of Rs 1,650 for six years. Kokate offes other options, too: invest Rs 10,000 and receive a litre of milk every day for 50 months, or for an investment of Rs 5,000 receive a kilogram of ghee every month for a period of 70 months.

Purna Vikas Prakalpa is housed at Purna Vikas Ashram, 30 km from Wai (which is about 110 km from Pune), in Satara district. It is a family-owned enterprise, comprising Chidanand Kokate as its chairman-cum-managing director.

Kokate plans to build a yoga university with funds collected from the bonds, with a target of raising Rs. 17 crores in two years. He claims to have collected Rs 25 lakhs within a month of floating the scheme, and has set up two plush offices in Pune's prime commercial locality. The collection centre is in Sagar Arcade, on Deccan Gymkhana, and an office on Fergusson College road.

The proposed yoya university will be set up at a cost of Rs 15 crore while the balance Rs 2 crores will be required for thediary equipment.There are stumbling blocks in Kokate's plan. He had floated a similar scheme in 1994, but at a micro level, within the area known as `Kshetra Mahabaleshwar'. And it has left many locals bitter with the experience.

According to AP Kolhapure, president of Wai Gymkhana, Kokate has not paid the transport, field equipment and other services, that he had employed in his previous plans. An ex-employee of the Purna Vikas Ashram, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also has a list of grievances. He said that Kokate has been luring potential investors to the site for the last two years but the project never seems to take off.

The site is located at Golewadi, about 140 km from here. Kokate owns 60 acres of land there which forms part of the picturesque `kshetra Mahabaleshwar'. The government is building a dam in the area, under the Maharashtra Krishna Valley Develpoment Corporation (MKVDC).

This project proposes to acquire 30 acres of Kokate's land; the state government is also planning to declarethe remaining area in the Krishna valley region a wildlife sanctuary although Kokate claims his land will not be acquired for it.

So far Kokate has only started levelling a part of the land so that the entire plan which boasts of 2000 buffaloes, as of today, appears far-fetched.It may be recalled that several plantation firms which had floated schemes have now stopped paying back money to investors.

Even Securities Exchange Board of India, which is the regulatory body for such company, is finding it tough to regulate plantation companies. Sebi investigations have revealed that several companies have not kept their accounts in order, diverted funds to other areas and floated new schemes to pay back earlier commitments.