Why almost every politician is
associated with some non-governmental organization (NGO) or voluntary
organization (VO) or should I say how many politicians run or are associated
with some NGO/VO?
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
These are high times when such
questions are to be asked and answers have to be sought for this ‘why’.
The one obvious answer reflects
in the Khurshid and Nitin Gadkari episodes. Though the Khurshids have filed for
defamation, and are shamelessly denying the documentary evidence, their act has
embarrassed many of their lot. While Khurshids are shielding behind verbal
manipulation and sham of a probe by the Uttar Pradesh government, Gadkari, too,
is ready to face the probe. Politicians monitoring probe or probing politicians
– what else likes of Khurshids and Gadkari can ask especially after the
political wisdom of the ‘mutual trust’ that Digvijay Singh illuminated us with.
These two keenly watched
corruption episodes, of Khurshids and Gadkari, prominently figure NGOs as a
route to divert funds or gain assets.
And there are multiple NGOs
created and run for this purpose only.
The developments throw many points
that tell us why politicians run or get associated with NGOs.
It’s about that easy money. Funds
copiously flow. Government of India
under its NGO Partnership System invites NGOs to register on a website (http://ngo.india.gov.in/auth/default.php)
and has enlisted 11 of its ministries and departments (in the first phase? – so
there might be more coming). These are Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Health
& Family Welfare, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Ministry of
Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Women & Child Development, Department of Higher
Education, Department of School Education & Literacy, National AIDS Control
Organisation (NACO), Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural
Technology (CAPART), Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB) and Department of
Youth Affairs.
A look at even the nomenclature
of these entities tells us all these areas entail ample opportunities to design
projects for social empowerment. India ’s social indicators are
really bad and it has more to do here with the project design than its
implementation. Monitoring is either absent or manipulated.
Almost every ministry earmarks
funds running into millions every year that are allocated to the NGOs for
projects ranging from vaccination drives to awareness campaigns. Sometimes the
vitals can be measured; sometimes it is not possible when the parameters are
vague like ‘awareness’.
The government accepts and
highlights the need of non-governmental organizations in extending the social
welfare work recognizing that it cannot reach everywhere. And here politicians
see the opportunity.
Politicians either form the
legislature and so are able to manipulate the executive or are close to the
legislature to get their ways in to have their ends meet.
There are some set criteria as to
which NGO can claim funds like having completed three years post the
registration and necessary tax and revenue documentations. But like everything
else these, too, can be managed and are managed.
Politicians and bureaucrats
siphoning off the government funds in collusion with other NGOs or through
their own outfits has been an open fact that everyone knew but no one cared to
talk about.
Expecting an irresponsible
response, as has been the case in the two developments mentioned in the opening
lines, is one of the reasons that make us not to talk about political and
bureaucratic corruption through NGOs in India . But that doesn’t mean we
ignore it.
Though there are more than enough
documents at the initial stage to implicate Khurshids’ NGO, the Ministry of
Social Justice & Empowerment, the funding ministry that asked for the
fund-use irregularities to be probed, flatly said they were not going to stop
funding Khurshids’ NGO.
The accepted practice is
commission or ‘cut’. Depending on the negotiation and the scale of the project,
it may range from 15 to 40 per cent the commission agents who hop the sanctioning
authorities say. I don’t know how much of it is true but the suspicion in such
cases is never unfounded. They go even to the extent saying almost every
project that is routed through NGOs/VOs is sold.
What has Khurshids’ prestigious
NGO done is just the tip of the iceberg. But with all going and expected to go
hand-in-glove, the ice may not melt in the near future.
Reports say as high as 98 per
cent of NGOs/VOs in India are nothing but money churning machines and it does compare
well with the public perception that barring few (like few honest NGOs and
activists), almost of the politicians can be ‘classified’ as corrupt.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
