Less than 1% NGOs in TN open to scrutiny

Chennai: The disparity and mismatch between funding and accountability in the voluntary sector in Tamil Nadu cannot get wider than this.
While Tamil Nadu has a mind-boggling number of 5,139 voluntary associations registered under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 1976, not even one per cent of them are willing to subject themselves to public scrutiny. Just 36 NGOs, which constitute only 0.70% of the total number of voluntary organisations in the state, are part of the Credibility Alliance, a consortium of voluntary organisations headquartered in New Delhi, which seeks to enhance accountability and transparency in the voluntary sector.
The state is home to nearly 14% of the 37,242 NGOs registered under the Act across the country as per ministry of home affairs records updated in February this year. Not just that during 2006-07, when there were only 3,009 NGOs in the state, they had received a whopping Rs 2,244.25 crore funding from abroad.
However, voluntary agencies are unwilling to account for their revenue and expenditure. A social analyst pointed out that instances of family members controlling NGOs and siphoning of funds as in the case of the tsunami fraud by a CSI church unearthed in Chennai, are numerous. When funding agencies abroad demand for accounts, many NGOs reflect a heavy expenditure towards conducting of workshops and seminars for raising awareness among the community on core issues, something that cannot be assessed for impact value.
Don’t funding agencies check the background of NGOs before sanctioning money? “During the tsunami, the devastation was massive and since the need for aid was immediate, many funding agencies abroad did not bother to check the credentials of NGOs which applied to them for monetary aid. They simply released the money and could not keep track of it,” explained S Praveen, the southern regional coordinator of Credibility Alliance.
According to him, there were many NGOs which approached different funding agencies and received money for the same project. “They completed a single project and accounted for it to various agencies. There was no due diligence done at that time,” he added.
Activists are now demanding that NGOs too should be brought under the purview of the Right To Information Act, since they are working in public domain and function using public money. This would help people access accounts of NGOs and monitor if they were acting in the larger interest of the society or not.