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Tsk again tsk!
Why not send a few GOOD NRAs back home on
retirement and set a good example.
AKN
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 10:31
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Oh, What A
Racket!
Tsk!
But we are talking about GOOD NGOs. Not all these corrupt garbage. Why
can't you understand that? All we need are a few GOOD ones.
Let us look for a few good folks and maybe we NRAs can incubate them
:-).
It would be a riot if not for the fact that our best are driven to act so
clueless.
At 6:57 AM -0700 5/3/05, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
Want to know how NGO's function in India?
Below is an article written by Anupreeta Das, who was a journalist with
Outlook India and who happens to be my niece. Many NGO's in India thrive on
government grants and serve as employment or source of income to the
founder/s.
Dilip
P.S. If you liked Anupreeta's writing, type
in "Anupreeta Das" in Google search and you will find many other articles
written by her.
===============================================================
Oh, What A
Racket!
Author: Anupreeta
Das
Publication:
Outlook
Date: September 22,
2003
Introduction: The hills are alive
with the buzz of self-seeking NGOs, many existing only in
name
Lush forests are not the only
bounty that Uttaranchal got in its kitty after it became a state in
November 2000. It also got close to 45,000 NGOs� mind-boggling for a state
so tiny, with a population of only 84.7 lakh. Records from the offices of
the chief commissioner of income tax and the registrar of societies
confirm this huge NGO presence. What has also come as a surprise to the
authorities is the unusually high density of NGOs in a state with 13
districts. That's nearly 4,000 NGOs per district!
When Uttaranchal's IT commissioner
Ashwini Luthra initiated a survey of NGOs in May, he did not expect to
chance upon a fraud that runs into crores of rupees. "When the IT
department started collecting data, we found that many NGOs did not
actually exist or were non-functional," says Luthra. "Yet, money is being
pumped into trusts, educational societies, NGOs and ashrams all over
Uttaranchal."
While the IT office lists a total
44,824 groups, the office of the registrar puts the figure at
41,826.
No wonder then that Uttaranchal's
NGO community is rife with allegations of corruption and diversion of
funds. Amidst the profusion, one can find registered NGOs such as the
Mahila Vikas Sansthan and Priyadarshini Himalayan Seva Institute that
don't exist at their addresses, educational
societies that have run up huge accounting discrepancies, and
blacklisted NGOs that are ostensibly unaware of their
disrepute.
Take, for instance, the Bal Evam
Mahila Kalyan Sansthan in Dehradun's Nehru Nagar. This NGO has been
blacklisted by the Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB) for "non-refund of
loans and non-submission of accounts", but its founder-director Parmanand
Agarwal denies it outright. "In the past, we have run a tailoring centre,
training sessions for making incense sticks and health relief camps with
funds from CAPART. Who says we have been blacklisted?" asks Agarwal. He
took voluntary retirement from the army to pursue his "mission", which is
to provide "literacy, health and employment for the people of
Uttaranchal". His tiny one-room office, which sits atop his residence,
houses the meagre tools of his mission: a computer, a typewriter, two
desks, government pamphlets and a telephone.
Since 2001, Agarwal's NGO has been
running a tele- counselling centre for HIV/AIDS under a Rs 2.74 lakh grant
from the National AIDS Control Organisation. "People call every few
minutes asking about HIV/ AIDS," he informs us and opens a register to
show calls recorded at two-minute and three- minute intervals. However, in
the one hour we sat in his office, there was not a single call. Agarwal
insists it is because it's "lunch break", presumably for callers too.
Neither he nor his colleague Dinesh Chand seem to know much about HIV/
AIDS. "Hum pamphlet se padh ke batate hain (We read out answers to queries
from the pamphlets)," explains Chand.
Faced with reports and allegations
of such misconduct, Dehradun's district magistrate ordered a survey of
registered NGOs and societies in June last year. Dehradun district is home
to 7,469 NGOs, the largest concentration in the state. The initial results
of the survey show that of 223 organisations checked so far, 139 NGOs and
societies are fraudulent or registered only on paper. "It is quite evident
that barely 10 per cent of the NGOs in Dehradun district are functional.
The rest just sit there, waiting for funds to come by," says chief
development officer P.S. Jangpangi. He says the situation in the rest of
Uttaranchal is "even worse".
Examination of bank accounts has
yielded irregularities in the funds of many NGOs. The Van Karamchari
Welfare Society, for instance, could not identify the source of Rs 4.6
lakh in its bank account when questioned by officials of the District
Programmes Office (DPO).Setting up schools appears to be another racket.
In October last year, a survey of educational societies by the IT
department showed unaccounted funds to the "tune of several crores", says
an IT official. However, Devender Mann, chairman of the Doon International
School Education Society (not to be confused with the renowned Doon
School), which is one of the schools surveyed, dismisses it as "baseless".
"We are a no profit, no loss society. All the money we earn from students
is spent on improving school facilities," he says.
Furthermore, a rough estimate by
the registrar's office shows that nearly 10,000 NGOs and societies have
been registered since Uttaranchal was created. "After schools, NGOs are
the sunrise industry," says Geetanjali, a social worker with the
development NGO Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra
(RLEK).
"Many paratroopers, lured by the
funds on offer for a newborn state, have come in and set up NGOs," alleges
RLEK chairman Avdhesh Kaushal. Uttaranchal is one of the few states that
enjoys special status with regard to central government development funds.
Besides, several international aid agencies too have pitched their tents
here. "There is money to be had, respect to be earned and very little work
to be done. No wonder, starting an NGO is a very attractive option," says
Kadambari Gosain, who helps her husband S.S. Gosain run the Kunwari Human
Development Institute in Dehradun.
The Gosains, however, have run
into financial difficulties and now run private vocational training
courses even though their institute is registered as a 'no profit, no
loss' one. "We are poor and honest. Why don't you talk to all those
relatives of government officials who have also started their own NGOs?"
asks Gosain.
There is much speculation among
the NGO community about the wives of Uttaranchal's bureaucrats running
NGOs to line their pockets. But in the absence of any proof, the suspicion
is mostly based on observation and hearsay. "These NGOs never participate
in workshops and meetings, so we don't know what they do. They say they
have no sources of funds but they bring out glossy calendars and
stationery every year," says J.M. Singh of NGO Mamta Samajik Kendra, which
works on health- related issues in the Chakrata
region.
The government policy itself may
be a reason for the mushrooming of NGOs. Says Sushil Sharma of Aarohi,
which has been working in the Nainital-Almora region for 15 years, "Top
government officials have been mindlessly promoting development through
the creation of women's self-help groups, which are registered as
societies." At present, registered mahila and yuva mandals, which are
intended as grassroots empowerment groups for women and the youth under a
CSWB scheme, number 20,401. Meanwhile, Singh argues that development NGOs
should be registered separately from religious, cultural and educational
societies in order to bring the number down to "manageable"
levels.
Uttaranchal is not the only state
in the country with such a large number of registered NGOs and
societies�Maharashtra has approximately 50,000.But the number is suspect
because of the state's size. According to Sanjay Bapat of the website
www.indianngos.com, which maintains a database of NGOs in India, of the 20
lakh registered NGOs and societies in the country, only 30,000 or so are
actually doing developmental work. How many of these are in Uttaranchal is
anybody's guess.
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