Editor,
Recently the editor of Manushi, Ms Madhu Kishwar based out of New Delhi has sent around a petition asking people to sign on it. The petition calls upon the Prime Minister of India to ban foreign funding of NGOs and to set up a National Social Service Fund to support NGOs doing genuine work among people. Foreign funded NGOs (FFNGOs) have been on the government’s watch list for a while now. Both NDA and UPA governments have had serious issues with several such FFNGOs. But the actions taken against a select few do not appear to be the product of a well thought out policy. Charges against some of the FFNGOs include misappropriation of funds, lack of transparency and accountability. A CBI analysis of NGOs across the country showed that of the 22,39,971 NGOs functioning in 20 States, only 10% (about 2,23,428) submitted annual returns. Of 5,684 NGOs in the six Union Territories, only 50 filed their balance sheets. None of the NGOs in Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura file returns. (The Hindu, January 6, 2015).
In the light of the above statistics, as a concerned citizen of Meghalaya I wish to draw the attention of Government and concerned citizens to one such NGO in our State whose leader calls herself a social entrepreneur and travels to different continents to talk about the ‘Impulse model’ although none of us in Meghalaya have actually seen how the model works. What we know is that the NGO brought out an erroneous study which showed that Jaintia Hills has 70,000 child labourers in its coal mines. This figure was evidently based on a wrong reading of the population statistics of Jaintia Hills. It put the Meghalaya Government in a spot and made it look spineless as it could not even come up with a credible defence. Interestingly this NGO released the findings on child labourers in Meghalaya, not in Shillong but at a press conference in Guwahati. The BBC picked up this news and Meghalaya made it to international headlines. No single journalist bothered to come and check the facts. Other television channels like Al Jazeera only came in later at the invitation of the NGO, to simply endorse the study after taking a few shots of the coal mines and the young people working there, many of whom are past the age of 14 years and therefore do not qualify to be child labourers.
Following this revelation many other documentary film makers particularly from the USA have been coming to Meghalaya to do their stories. It is also alleged that this NGO is heavily funded by donors from the USA and the donors probably have no time to come and see the results of the NGO’s claims on the ground. Recently the head of this NGO who has mastered the development jargon has also been invited to IIT Guwahati. She claims to be an IIM Kolkata graduate which is false and also makes many other tall claims on her CV. No one bothers to check peoples’ biographies and take them at face value. I find this to be a very dangerous development. If the foreign funding stops it will be interesting to see how this NGO manages. Ironically the Social Welfare Department of Meghalaya works closely with this NGO. But one is not surprised knowing how such nexus works in Meghalaya.
Yours etc.,
Banlamphang Khongwir,
Via email