On may 23, a high-level talk of Uttarakhand officials held at Dehradun has decided to set up a committee to monitor the NGO sector and their finances.The meeting presided over by Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar, comprised of senior officers of the home department, Local Intelligence Unit, Intelligence Bureau and Reserve Bank of India. The chief Secretary is going to submit the suggestions to the Union home department, for further action.

The initiative of the Uttarakhand Government is praiseworthy as it is also plans to suggest the Central Government to give it a list of NGOs to state governments that are being funded directly by it; thereby it would check if funds allocated to the NGOs have been properly utilized. The empowered panel also contemplates to have a strict vigil on the flow of foreign money under Foreign Currency Regulation Act (FCRA) as well.

--------------------

Better late than never, the NGOs in the state have proved to be money mincing machines for people with self serving motives. A recent sting operation conducted by an esteemed national daily on the working of these NGOs in Uttarakhand; found that many of these NGOs don’t even have an Office set up, with everything just existing on paper.

That said the onus of putting some check on the working of these NGOs lies on the common folk too. If the common man of Uttarakhand fully understands the utility of NGOs—which is to extend the Government’s Good work to places where it doesn’t have reach at OR where the Government considers people from civil society able to dispense better work than it, owing to their better understanding of the people and region – then the people running these NGOs will not be able to able to bifurcate the money meant for people for their selfish motives.

To fulfill your role as an aware citizen, question the NGO, every time you participate in some NGO run activity, like handicraft training, skill development. Insist on seeing the original Government correspondence regarding the programme. And last but not the least; don’t attend any work shop just to fill the attendance muster of the NGO. If you do this you are hurting yourself, more than the Government. In case you encounter some shoddy NGO and fund embezzlement, raise your voice.
----