Government today sought to allay members’ apprehension in the Rajya Sabha that black listed NGOs could be getting funds from the Centre. “No blacklisted NGO can get grant-in-aid,” Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Mukul Wasnik said in Question Hour. He said that NGOs are given grant in aid only after recommendation of the state governments who are duly informed by ministries whenever any NGO is blacklisted.
The minister also dismissed contentions of Mabel Rebello (Cong) that bogus NGOs and consultants are roaming around while the real NGOs in the tribal state of Jharkhand are not getting a penny.
The minister said such generalisation is not a right approach as many other NGOs are doing “yeoman’s work.”
He at the same time, he underlined the need to streamline the procedures and to have better mechanism for functioning of NGOs.
That means, not one single pedegreed NGO run by the wives/children/benamis of bureaucrats/politicians/influencial university teachers shall ever be (probed and) blacklisted. As it is, getting registerd as a charitable society under the relevsant Acts, including the Income Tax Act, is in itself a “costly” proposition. To avoid being blacklisted, the really genuine NGOs operating in rural interiors will be compelled to pay up or close down. The below-BPL nobodies must therfore suffer as, in most of these areas, there is no government presence.
Really effective governance in a true democracy!