Professor Vaidyanathan at DNA India, describes the grossly wasteful and nefarious activities of foreign NGOs, which cost the US taxpayers heavily, while destablizing the country:
“The funding for these NGOs is substantially international. The international flow of funds is regulated by the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA). Table-1 provides the trends in the number of reporting registered associations and the amount of money received under the Act.
We find that the number of reporting associations has declined (percent wise) over the period and the numbers of those not complying with the laws have increased. For instance, the ministry has placed 8,673 associations under “prior permission” category in 2005 for failure to furnish annual returns for the three previous consecutive years. There exists substantial under-reporting.
We also find that in the last three years, the amount received has shown a phenomenal increase and it was 56% more in 2006-2007 than in the previous year. The report of the home ministry also provides other information regarding the states receiving the largest amount and purpose, etc pertaining to the year 2006-2007.
It suggests that important states or union territories are Tamil Nadu (Rs 2,244 crore) –
(Lila: this is where the Afro-Dalit movement and Tamil separatism have flourished, not coincidentally)
followed by Delhi (Rs 2,187 crore), Andhra Pradesh (Rs 1,211 crore) and Maharashtra (Rs 1,195 crore). Among donor countries, USA leads in the list of donor countries (Rs 2,972 crore), followed by Germany (Rs 1,649 crore), UK (Rs 1,425 crore) and Switzerland (Rs 605 crore).
The leading donor agencies are Misereor Pastfach, Germany (Rs 1,244 crore), World Vision International USA (Rs 469 crore), Foundation Vicente Ferrer Spain (Rs 399 crore) and ASA Switzerland (Rs 302 crore).
The largest recipients are Ranchi Jesuits of Jharkhand (Rs 622 crore), followed by the Santhome Trust of Kalyan, Maharashtra (Rs 333 crore), Sovereign Order of Malta, Delhi (Rs 301 crore), World Vision of India, Tamil Nadu (Rs 256 crore), Jesuit Educational and Charitable Society, Karnataka (Rs 230 crore).
Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are some of the states with a large number of NGOs. It is curious to note that the poorest states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, etc do not have as many numbers.
(Lila: Why is that? If they were interested in helping the poor, that’s where they’d be).
Among the top 15 recipients, each with more than Rs 90 crore receipts from abroad, at least 14 are easily identifiable as Christian charity organisations from their names.
The interesting information is regarding the purpose of the donations (see Table-2). Establishment expenses top the list, followed by relief and rehabilitation, rural development, child welfare and construction and maintenance of schools and colleges. Substantial sums are spent on construction of places of worship and maintenance of priests.
Establishment expenses consist of buying land, buildings, jeeps, setting up fancy offices, mobiles, laptops, expensive cameras, salaries, consultancy fees, honorarium, and importantly, foreign travel etc, which make up 35-70% of the expenses. This goes against the grain of service motto where the ultimate recipient is supposed to get the maximum.
By definition, NGO activity is voluntary and hence one expects that the overheads of the organisations are lean. In financial parlance, the fixed cost is expected to be relatively small.
Contrary to this belief, we find that the establishment expenses are the major reasons for receiving donations from abroad. In other words, NGOs are perhaps becoming like top-heavy government departments wherein a substantial portion of developmental expenses is spent on salary wages and other expenses such as telephone, travel (both domestic and international), etc. Nowadays, they even recruit “executives” from management institutions.
NGOs are active in pointing out the deficiencies in the functioning of the government, be they on human rights or the Right to Information or Tribes Act or dam oustees.
Hence, it is all the more important that their activities are transparent, particularly from the point of view of their sources and uses of funds.”