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>But it cannot be a replacement for effective
governance.
And who says that? Nobody. So the
statement is irrelevant.
Rajen
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 8:14
AM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Oh, What A
Racket!
Citizen participation, NGOs, are good for democracy. Even essential to
make govt. responsive. But it cannot be a replacement for effective
governance.
You can have the best NGOs in the world, but with a govt. like Indian
govt. things will still not change. Because the Indian govt. controls
the powers, the resources and holds the legitimate authority. NGO's don't. All
they can do is cry and scream. It helps, but is NOT a SUBSTITUTE.
The absurdity involved in these arguments is that we are proposing to
resort to NGOs because the govt. is dysfunctional.
If NGOs are all we need, why do we need government?
Thought about that?
At 5:50 AM -0700 5/4/05, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
Never know. That idea may be in incubation
already.
"Anjan K. Nath" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
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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 -----
From: Chan
Mahanta
To: Dilip/Dil
Deka ; ASSAMNETCOLORADO
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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