Need a cause correction

Prime Minister's statement about NGOs may be seen as a tactic to divert the public attention from burning issues. But NGOs should make their operations more transparent to regain public confidence.

S Remadevi/ Koodankulam/Kochi

The recent statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -- that foreign-funded non-governmental organizations are behind the anti-nuclear protests in India -- has rattled the NGO sector. His comments attracted a barrage of criticism too. Immediately after the prime minister's comments, there were media reports about "crores spent on Tamil Nadu NGOs by foreign donors" to organize anti-nuclear protests in Koodamkulam, where a massive nuclear power plant is being built. Offices of a few NGOs were raided and scrutiny of their accounts was carried out with a vengeance by government agencies.
NGOs getting foreign funding is not a new phenomenon. Many NGOs are money-minting agencies.
Is the prime minister's statement just an expression of frustration within the government which has failed on governance? Or is he promoting conspiracy theories which has been the hallmark Congress regimes in the past?
It is simply not enough for the Prime Minister to throw up his hands and blame NGOs for his own government's inability to get things done. Singh's statement was rejected by anti-nuclear activists.
"By making these absurd allegations, he is diverting everybody's attention from the real issues here," said V. Pushparayan, an activist from the Coastal People's Federation.
However, this controversy had brought, once again, the functioning of the voluntary sector in the sharp focus. Although all the NGOs cannot be painted by the same brush, the fraud committed by some persons associated with the voluntary sector has given the critics the handle to beat the sector.
Recently, bosses of a Bangalore-based NGO were arrested for misusing international credit cards and stealing over Rs 15 crore under the pretext of running a charitable trust.
Meanwhile, a huge amount of money is being pumped into India by genuine philanthropist for the uplift of the poor. But many NGOs take advantage of the systemic weaknesses and divert the funds for other purposes. In such scenarios, the only way to stem the rot is regular monitoring and evaluation.
Monitoring and evaluation of projects is a standard practice followed in the international development for the periodic review of the projects and organizations supported, by agencies disbursing aid. M&E is necessary to confirm whether the strategy pursued for sustainable development has been successful or not or if it is on the right path. That is because the strategies have multiple objectives and activities, socio-economic and environmental conditions also change over a period of time.
Monitoring of the implementation of the strategy is done to ensure standard management oversight and accountability. Evaluation is necessary to correlate actions with specific changes in human and environmental conditions, to test the strategic hypothesis, ensure accountability, capture lessons and develop capacity through learning.
While this may appear as an important tool to measure what impact a project has made, in reality it is viewed with lot of skepticism by the receivers of aid or the body seeking support. And this is not without reason.
More often than not they feel that M&E is subservient to the preconceived judgment of the funding agency and therefore not objective. There are so many cases where the team that conducts M&E are paid heavily by the beneficiary group to say what the former wants to hear. As a result the real impact assessment of the project is never done. It is not possible to know whether the work done has made any difference to the lives of people, what that difference might be, if at all, who gains and who, perhaps, loses, whose impact is it and who decides, so on and so forth.
There are several tools, methods and approaches adopted to evaluate results of a developmental activity. These include performance indicators, formal surveys, theory based evaluation, rapid appraisal methods, participatory methods, cost benefit and cost-effectivene analysis and public expenditure tracking surveys, to name a few. Some of these tools and approaches are complimentary and others are substitutes. The choice which is appropriate for any given context will depend on a range of considerations. These include the uses for which M&E is intended, the main stakeholders who are interested in the findings of M&E, the speed with which the information is needed and the cost.
While M&E of developmental activities provide government officials, development managers and civil society groups a better means for learning from past experience, improving service delivery, planning and allocating resources, yet there is often confusion about what M& E entails. Not only that, it also fails in achieving the desired results.
While impact evaluation helps us to understand the extent to which activities have reached the poor, and the magnitude of their effect on people's welfare, the methodology used for assessing impact, causes difficulties in identifying an appropriate counter factual. Even the participatory method used for evaluation is not fool proof, although it establishes partnerships and local ownership of the projects. In the participatory method there is a danger of domination and misuse by some stakeholders.
M&E is often activity focused, involving too many rituals and symbolism, to show that the funding body and the beneficiary group believe in its importance. Lot of effort goes into the planning, especially the methodology. However, the evaluation result is mentioned at the end of the planning document and thus typically treated as a residual matter and not the centre of attention.
A few proposals for evaluation, or the design of monitoring systems, define how the impact of M&E activities will be identified. As a result it is unrealistic to expect noticeable effects and also changes in the procedures adopted by NGOs. There is another flip side to it. Most information generated for the donor agency is done with a bias towards the confirmation of people's expectations that everything is moving along the expected lines.
Also the traditional method of M&E by an external agency which produces the report at the end of the project mainly provides a snapshot of the quantitative information, ignoring the quality of project interventions or the steps taken to achieve the desired goal. As a result there is no lesson learned in terms of steps to be taken to ensure sustainability of the project and to assist in the design of future projects. Thus the future projects end up making the same mistakes.
Despite the negative comments about M&E, it is important to conduct monitoring and evaluation the impact for the donors as it helps them to supervise the disbursement of aid to determine if money is being spent by the recipient in the way it was agreed upon and to push for the adoption of new ideas and approaches. If done properly, it also helps the recipient or the NGOs to take midcourse correction and to make a case for enhanced support. Also evaluations do create a space and opportunity for staff to go beyond their routine tasks and think on broader issues and to take stock of their progress, as well as to update records and monitoring systems. Considering, transparency and accountability remain hard-to-achieve goal in many million development projects in India, there is a tight rope to be walked and caution has to be taken in order to achieve the desired results.

Can’t paint with the same brush

Sangita Jha/New Delhi

While many NGOs are minting money, genuine ones are struggling to stay afloat

Non-governmental oganisation Aadivasi Seva Sansthan based in Chitrakoot which started its work in the last decade has come a long way. It espoused many causes and spearheaded numerous movements. At times its activists succeeded inforcing successive governments to change policy and some times large projectscould not take off due to their stiff protest.
But there are many black sheep in the voluntary sector. "There are six lakh villages in India and there are 12 lakh NGOs. Not all of the NGOs work for the objectives for which they are formed. A large number of them work for vested interests, including for monetary gains," said Dhirendra Mishra who runs Agrocrats Society for Rural Development in Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
Mishra is of the opinion that the move to bring the NGOs under the ambit of the proposed Lokpal is the right step to nail fraudulent lot. However, Mishra also stresses that NGOs can not be run without adequate finances.
"Our NGO have members who are graduates from various agricultural universities. For these people it's a career for them to work for the advancement of the rural parts of the country by utilizing their training in agriculture. When you run an organization with a professional work force, naturally you will require strong financial backing," said Mishra.
Though NGOs have come under scanner for fuelling agitation against Koodamkulam nuclear power plant, their role in shaping policies of government cannot be underestimated. In fact, the Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh had told during a round table discussion on role of research institutions in the ongoing Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) that the government would like to invest in them to help them in capacity building. Even member of the National Advisory Council (NAC) and former secretary to government of India NC Saxena had sought involvement of NGOs to ensure objective and impartial conduct of SECC. He has been of the view that the interference of political workers at the local level ensure that the needy are kept out of the below poverty line (BPL) list and non-deserving getting benefits.
"In today's time NGOs are everywhere. I can tell you that each of the MPs in the Parliament either take help of NGOs to connect with the people or patronize them for various purposes. You can not rule out NGOs. So, when the NGOs have mushroomed in such a big ways, it can also be not ruled out that a large number of them may be working for reasons other than their stated objectives," said Manoj Kumar Singh, who runs "Akhil Bhartiya Mahila Jagriti Sansthan" in Delhi.
Singh strongly seeks the government to catch the NGOs with dubious credentials and says that they should be shut down without any hesitation. However, Singh is also of the opinion that NGOs cannot function without adequate funds.
"We employ MBA graduates who prepare detailed project reports as mandated by the government agencies. We have to have adequate infrastructure, which includes computers. With projects flowing in along with financial gains, the NGOs too expand in manpower along with possibility of some of the people joining in the organization to make quick bucks than to serve the people," said Singh matter of factly.
However, the NGOs, who have also been called civil society, have much larger role to play in places when government agencies alone cannot deliver the benefits of its various schemes. In the Bundelkhand region, which had witnessed droughts years after year, people rely more on NGOs to deliver them the guidance in carrying out their activities. One of such NGOs, Aadivasi Seva Sansthan based in Chitrakoot, has been carrying out the work on watershed development for the past 16 years.
"We have annual budget in the range of Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, which includes grants from the government and foreign agencies. We have clear objective that we have to be part of the solution of acute problem of irrigation in the Bundelkhand region. We have been building check dams, minor irrigation and watershed development," said RP Singh of Aadivasi Seva Sansthan.
However, there are NGOs who specialize in raising bills and vouchers against non-existent works to get money from the governments, with a number of them being fairly successful also, added Singh. He candidly admits that without funds it's tough to do any work now. "If we have budget with sufficient funding then only we can execute our works. When we fail to arrange for funds, we have to lay off people. Who can work for free now," said Singh.
Clearly, the NGOs have gone a metamorphosis, with most of them based out in urban centres having professionally educated manpower. As Manoj Kumar Singh says that gone are the days when NGOs used to be based out in rural areas where people used to eke out their livings by agricultural works and in spare time they used to engage in public service, the civil society has now become a profession, which cannot survive without a viable business model. Changed times demand changed regulations too and it appears that the lot of genuine NGOs do not mind coming under the scrutiny of the law of the land.

Money makes the NGO go round

Home Ministry report says voluntary organizations,
mostly based in South India, got more than Rs 10,000 crore from foreign donors.

Sopan Correspondent
Arecent report of the Union Home Ministry showed that more than Rs10,000 crore was pumped into India during 2009-2010, mostly from the USA and Europe to NGOs in India.
The report says that while it is not proper to make sweeping generalisations, it is necessary to note that the NGO sector in India is vulnerable to the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing. "Therefore, necessary steps for rigorous enforcement as well as coordination with foreign countries for law enforcement will continue. Our efforts for coordination with State police organisations and other specialised organisations will also continue towards this direction," the report said.
The report revealed that major donors from abroad and receivers in India are Christian Missionaries and Church-sponsored NGOs.
The analysis of the Home Ministry's 42-page report shows that 14,233 NGOs received foreign contribution of Rs10,337.59 crore. The highest contribution came to Delhi (Rs1,815.91 crore) followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs1,663.31 crore) and Andhra Pradesh (Rs1,324.87 crore). Interestingly, in district-wise analysis Chennai topped the list of foreign contribution with Rs 871.60 crore, followed by Bangalore (Rs703.43 crore) and Mumbai (Rs606.63 crore).
The biggest fund inflow to NGOs has come from the USA (Rs3,105.73 crore) followed by Germany (Rs1,046.30 crore) and the UK (Rs1,038.68 crore). These three countries have topped in the donors' list of Home Ministry for many years. Most the funding has been generated from Christian missionaries of these three nations. The donor missionaries have also formed their Indian subsidiaries.
The other toppers come from Italy (Rs 583.47 crore), the Netherlands (Rs509.46 crore), Spain (Rs 437.25 crore) Switzerland (Rs302.06 crore), Canada (Rs297.98 crore), France (Rs189.12 crore) and Australia (Rs148.28). The eleventh big donor to Indian NGOs is from UAE with Rs133.15 crore.
"The list of foreign donors is topped by the Gospel For Asia Inc of the USA (Rs 232.71 crore) followed by Fundacion Vicente Ferrer, Barcelona, Spain (Rs 228.60 crore) and the World Vision Global Centre of the USA (Rs197.62 crore)," said the report of Home Ministry on foreign contribution and regulation for the period of year 2009-2010. These three are evangelical organisations. The fourth largest donor, Compassion International, is also from the US (Rs131.57 core) and belongs to the same category.
Interestingly the fifth biggest donor is India's HCL, which has made the contribution through its Mauritius subsidiary HCL Holdings Private Limited. HCL's entire donation of Rs 94.28 crore has gone to educational organisation in Chennai, knows as Sevasubramania Nadar Educational Charitable Trust, formed in the name of HCL owner Shiv Nadar's father.
"The highest amount of foreign contribution was received by the World Vision of India, Chennai, Tamil Nadu (Rs 208.94 crore), followed by the Rural Development Trust, Ananthapur, AP (Rs 151.31 crore), and Shri Sevasubramania Nadar Educational Charitable Trust, Chennai (Rs. 94.28 crore).
"The highest amount of foreign contribution was received and utilised for establishment expenses (Rs 1,482.58 crore), followed by rural development (Rs 944.30 crore), welfare of children (Rs 742.42 crore), construction and maintenance of school/college (Rs 630.78 crore) and grant of stipend/scholarship/assistance in cash and kind to poor/deserving children (Rs 454.70 crore)," says the Home Ministry report on the fund utilisation by NGOs.
According to the report, during the year, 133 NGOs received foreign contribution in excess of Rs 10 crore, 179 associations between Rs 5 crore and Rs 10 crore, 1,594 associations between Rs 1 crore and Rs 5 crore, and 12,327 below Rs 1 crore. Out of 21,508 associations, 7275 have reported 'nil' receipt of foreign contribution.

Money or Mission: What Drives NGOs?

Recent statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on western-funded NGOs that are hell-bent on sabotaging India's nuclear power project has triggered a debate in the country. Close on the heels, the Union Home Ministry released a list of NGOs which received a whopping Rs 10,000 crore fund from foreign donors in 2009-2010. It is not a new development. For decades, NGOs have been benefiting from foreign funding. Those in the Home Ministry would tell you how NGOs are being used as conduits for money laundering. Many NGOs with dubious credentials were receiving huge amounts of donations from foreign agencies. But never before has the government showed any determination to control the flow of money. Then, why now? This raises the suspicion that the government is trying to stifle the voice of dissent through other means. NGOs have done commendable work in awakening the conscience of the country. Moreover, many NGOs, without any foreign help, are undertaking philanthropic activities. But there are thousands of black sheep among them. These money-minting organizations are giving a bad name to the voluntary sector. There is a trust deficit in some quarters. Government controls on the sector may be counter-productive. However, there is a need for a regulator at the national level to oversee the voluntary sector, accredit NGOs, make rules for the better of the sector.

Kerala fails to pass the test

Dr S Remadevi/ Kochi

Despite excellent literacy rate and presence of quality institutions, Kerala students are lagging behind in competitive tests. Is it due to declining quality in education?
At a recent seminar at Thiruvananthapuram, the general refrain among speakers was why Keralities, despite having better education avenues, are not figuring in the list of successful candidates for all India competitive exams.
Many speakers said it is myth to say that Kerala is an oasis of learning as there is a steady decline in the quality of education. Experts blamed successive governments for the condition of education in the state.
One of the major reasons is financial constraints faced by the sector. There has been a quantitative expansion of the sector but this has also added to its financial woes. This has hit the efforts on upgradation and modernisation of the sector. The state has not been able to properly take care of the existing infrastructure. Also there has been a dearth of ideas as to how to go about quantitative and qualitative expansion of the sector.
The decline of the quality of education in government-run schools has resulted in the mushrooming of schools in the private sector.
The State has around 13,000 schools of which 4,500 are Government schools while about 7,500 are private-aided and some 800 private-unaided schools.
"About 30 per cent of the children who complete primary schools do not reach the necessary achievement levels in literacy and numeracy," say Dr K.K. George and Dr K.K. Krishnakumar of the Centre for Socio Economic and Environmental Studies (CSES).
According to media reports, the dropout rates in secondary schools are high. This is particularly true for SC/ST students.
“Only about 50 per cent of the students who appear for the examination get through in spite of liberal valuation and provision for grace marks. Only one-third of the children who join the first standard manage to pass the matriculation examination,” they said.
There were reports in the media which showed how even 10th pass students were not able to spell their names correctly.
The large-scale drop-outs in the secondary schools as also the high percentage of failures at the matriculation level, the low average marks scored etc., are manifestations of the low-level of preparation of students and their consequent inability to cope with even the modest sifting procedures.
But a recent study has brought out that the per-pupil expenditure on secondary education is very low compared to other States. The per-pupil expenditure on secondary education in Kerala is only Rs 4,659, as against the all-India average of Rs 5,668.
In higher education also, the situation is not very encouraging. Kerala lags behind other States not only in qualitative terms but also in quantitative terms.

Tangled up in debt trap

Sopan Correspondent/ New Delhi

Despite many schemes, handloom weavers continue to be a neglected lot

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been shouting from the rooftops about schemes the UPA has introduced to help weavers in UP. But it seems nothing has trickled down to the weavers of Varanasi. Ali Husain Ansari, a weaver, says he has not benefited from the government's financial package for weavers announced in December 2011.
The UPA government accuses the state government for their plight. While most of the money of the schemes are pocketed by cooperatives, it seldom reaches the target group. ”All the money of the schemes has gone to cooperative societies. It has become difficult to for us to even pay back loans," Ali said.
There are about 50 lakh weavers in the country. Although their produce are sold at high prices, they seldom gets the benefit. Most of them live in penury and poverty.
Weavers of Tamil Nadu too have lurched from one crisis to another, surviving on the strength of their resilience. The cooperative movement, started in the 1950s to help weavers tide over frequent crisis situations, and Cooptex, the apex marketing society, set up to promote handlooms, have been undermined systematically over the years. Politicisation of the cooperative set-up, with successive governments dissolving the elected boards and filling the societies with their own partymen, has weakened the movement. Cooptex, far from being a promotional agency, has been transformed into a mere marketing agency.
Tamil Nadu, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of the country's handloom textiles production and 50 per cent of exports, has over six lakh handloom units and 1,400 cooperative societies. Handloom weaving with products ranging from duster cloth to silk saris, is a common occupation throughout the State, except in the Nilgiris district.
Over 50 per cent of the weavers are in the cooperative fold and the majority of them produce dhotis and saris for the Janata cloth scheme. The offtake under the scheme, which distributes saris and dhotis to the poor, was substantial. Among the traditional centres associated with this scheme are Srivilliputhur and Rajapalayam in Virudhunagar district; Andipatti in Madurai district; Ammayarkuppam and Arani in Thiruvallur district; and Kezhkodungalur in Tiruvannamalai district.
Handloom weavers have been representing their problems to the government but their pleas have elicited nothing more than temporary measures. And as the situation began to deteriorate early this year, they organised dharnas and agitations at the local level. When everything failed, and their families faced starvation, the weavers of Srivilliputhur set up community gruel centres on July 22. Soon more gruel centres came up in traditional weaving centres. Under the programme, which started from within and in which the entire community is participating, a group of youngsters goes around the village collecting foodgrains, pulses and vegetables, prepares gruel in a common kitchen, and supplies it to the weavers' families once a day. Workers' organisations, such as the LIC Workers Union, have been helping with necessary food materials.
If the handloom industry has thus far survived competition from the powerlooms, the liberalised policy regime, market instability and government apathy, it is largely because of its own resilience. Now with demand disappearing for traditional handloom products owing to changing consumer preferences, poor marketing facilities, dearth of knowledge, skills and technical expertise to adapt to changing demand and lack of infrastructure to upgrade the looms, the handloom sector is a shambles. If the industry, the second largest employer in Tamil Nadu after agriculture, is to survive and the lakhs of weavers' families are to be saved from their desperate situation, it needs to be re-oriented with sound government support.
The commerce and industry ministry had announced a Rs.2,350 crore package for weavers to bail weavers out of distress. But the weavers say government packages to bail them out have passed them by.
Husain said hundreds of Mughal textile weavers in Varanasi and in the villages around it have switched to pulling rickshaws to fend for themselves. He and thousands of his fellow weavers in Varanasi depend on "resham" threads from "Korea" and yellow "tussar" from China. "Their prices fluctuate between Rs.1,680 and Rs.4,500 (per bale). A loan of Rs.25,000 to 50,000 is not enough," he said.
The muga weavers of Assam are fighting against farm pesticides that are killing muga silk worms in their habitats in Upper Assam. Muga, one of the costliest and rarest varieties of silk, is known as "the golden fibre of Assam".
"The volume of fibre extracted from silkworms has decreased over the years with muga worms dying of chemcials that farmers in Upper Assam spray in their fields," said weaver and crafts actvist Kusum Lashkar, who manages the NGO Shanti Sadhana Ashram in Guwahati.
The effect of the pesticides spreads far and wide and destroys silk farms. "The constrained production has led to an increase in prices of muga silk by almost 50 percent," Lashkar claimed. The muga weavers of Assam have been facing a demand-supply gap over the last few years, the weaver said.
Such tales of neglect, poverty and poor impelmentation of government projects at the grassroots fought for attention with a colourful spread of handloom products at "Kargha Yagya" at the sprawling Gandhi Smriti Feb 23. The textile showcase was in memory of Kasturba Gandhi, the woman who spun the charkha alongside her husband Mahatma Gandhi.
An unknown community of sheep wool weavers in Jharkhand - the Behriyar-Gareriya nomads from the Gaya district in Bihar - has almost given up its traditional craft of blanket weaving for lack of funds.
"We weave blankets from sheep wool collected from our herds of sheep. But the state government (the state handloom and handicraft corporation Jharcraft) has turned its face away from us and we cannot compete with the blankets being sold in the markets. Our blankets cost Rs.300 each in the market while each blanket costs Rs.350 to weave. We are forced to sell our products in villages because of limited access to urban markets," Iqbal said.
The community of 75 wool weavers' families lives in two villages - Mahwawdavan and Barawad in Madhupur block. Bhagat, whose family owns a herd of 500 sheep, says "the near-death of the blanket weaving tradition has killed the barter system of economy that helped the villagers sustain".
Ajay Singh, a weaver from Bhagalapur in Bihar, known as India's silk city, said "the government should work directly with communities of weavers in villages for holistic welfare of the communities".
He demanded a "residential school for the childern of weavers where they would learn their native tongue, the national language and an international language to compete in the global market".
Mohammed Mominul Islam and Riaz-ul-Haq, silk weavers and textile designers from Malda in northern West Bengal, complain of poor accessibility to markets and design interventions.
"This is our first visit to Delhi. We realised after coming here that saris are not in demand in northern India; girls prefer silk 'salwar-kameez'. We have to improvise on our range to make textile-lengths for 'salwar-kameez'," Ansari said. Malda produces 80 percent of Bengal's silk in three clusters - Sujapur, Jalalpur and Kaliachowk.
"People have forgotten the Gandhian lesson - production by mass for mass. Buyers would rather go to malls for designer labels. They should have access to more markets, resources and raw material," said Manimala, director of the Gandhi Smriti and Gandhi Darshan at Rajghat in the capital.
Citing statistics, Manimala said, "The country has nearly 25 lakh (2.5 million) handlooms employing 50 lakh (5 million) people and about 60 percent of them subist below the poverty line".
Kerala has around 50000 handlooms both in the private sector and in over 750 cooperative societies provide employment to about 1.25 lakh weavers. Kerala State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society (HANTEX), the apex organization of the cooperatives and Kerala State Handloom Development Corporation Ltd (HANVEEV) providing services (especially marketing) to individual weavers, are the principal development agencies assisting the Department of Handlooms and Textiles.
The handloom industry faces a serious crisis, owing to (i) competition from cheap powerloom cloth from other states (ii) scarcity of quality yarn (iii) price escalation of yarn, dyes, chemicals and other raw materials (iv) the shrinking market for handlooms in Kerala (v) non-demand based production and inadequacy of new designs and (vi) inefficiencies in the system, particularly in the cooperative sector.
The Deen Dayal Hathkargha Prothsahan Yojana (DDHPY) introduced by the Government of India is a comprehensive scheme for the development of the handloom industry. The assistance provided by the Government of India is sometimes insufficient considering the wages and quality of living in Kerala and hence it may be supplemented by State schemes. Welfare schemes of the Government of India will also be popularized and implemented in the above manner.
The traditional industries in Kerala particularly coir, handlooms, khadi, bamboo-based, handicrafts, artisanal and village (cottage) industries etc. are plagued by problems of high cost production, low quality, absence of diversified product range, inappropriate technology and incapacity for professional marketing and export. Increased mechanization, large scale of production and global competition in quality and price pose the threat of massive redundancies in these high employment sectors of Kerala, which may result in poverty and social problems.
To attract private sector investment badly needed in these sectors, a special scheme of investment subsidy with adequate incentives will be implemented, so that our reliance on cooperatives heavily dependents financially on the government for investment (often to the extent of 95% or more) will be reversed. Agencies created primarily as apex organizations and for marketing of traditional industry products like coir, handloom, khadi, cottage industry products, handicrafts etc. will be given programme funding rather than the non- conditional grants and share participation given in the past in order to avoid wastage of scarce Government resources on high overheads and to ensure delivery of their services (particularly marketing) in the most cost effective manner, using private sector finance and initiative at the retail level.
The development and production of value added, diversified and innovative products from traditional industries is proposed to be done by a cluster based approach which will ensure the critical mass for forward integration. Marketing, both domestic and global, is to be promoted by developing brand equity for Kerala’s traditional industry products. Research and development to create new processes and appropriate machinery will be funded on a project-to-project basis with the provision for success fees linked to effective commercialization and commissioning.

Koodamkulam conundrum deepens

Shanti Priya/ Chennai

‘There is a concerted effort to discredit our movement’

The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) that has been fighting against the Koondankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) in Tamil Nadu was in the thick of controversy after the PMO charged that certain western funded NGOs were behind its agitation. The Prime Minister himself led the attack when he said that NGOs in the US backed the agitation. Sopan Correspondent spoke to SP Udayakumar, chief of the organisation. Excerpts

What do have to say about the allegation that your outfit is being supported by the US and Scandinavian NGOs? Prime Minister and his senior colleagues have attacked NGOs working against the power project.
Totally false. We haven’t received any funds from any national or international NGOs. The government’s move is to discredit our movement. Narayanasamy said the centre has cancelled the FCRA of three NGOs. Who are they? The government should examine their accounts to see how they spent the money if there was suspicion that they supported us. Without evidence, they are raising wild allegations. I have sent legal notice to the Prime Minister. It’s unfortunate that such allegations are being raised against an organisation that is working for public cause. When the government makes such serious allegations it should also provide some proof.

There is an allegation that your organisation is funding fishermen who have not been going for fishing to ensure their participation in the agitation.
It is not true that the agitating local villagers are not engaged in any gainful work. They “boycotted” fishing only in September for 12 days. After that, they have been engaged in fishing, running their shops, beedi rolling and all their routine livelihood activities. They stay away from work only when there is a major event.
They all support the agitation through small contributions. Ours is not a high profile protest extravaganza like the ones organised by the Congress or the BJP. We don’t offer biryani or liquor or other expensive inducements. We just provide drinking water. We don’t hire expensive halls to stage our meetings or protests; instead we have made a modest “pandal,” which was a one time investment. We also have our own sound system. Therefore we don’t have major recurring expenses.
Ours is a simple Gandhian struggle. The Congress and the BJP don’t know how to wage such a struggle — that is why they are making such wild allegations. Whenever we travel, we hire a taxi. We don’t live in luxurious hotels and don’t eat luxurious meals. We strictly adhere to Gandhian principles. The Congress knows only rich Gandhis.
People do contribute. To give you an example, at the rally in Chennai, we were short of funds and people immediately chipped in and collected Rs. 41,000. At the protest location, we have a committee of 20 people which handles our finances. We are more than willing to share our accounts if anybody wants to see them.

Another allegation is that the Catholic Church is behind your agitation. Is it true?
First of all, it is a false propaganda that the Church is supporting us. The only connection we have with the Church is that we live in the parish priest’s house. No church or bishop has given us money. It is a 90 percent christian village and therefore there will be a lot of Christians – it’s inevitable. I am myself a Hindu and there are two more Hindus in our core committee. There is even an RSS worker who is part of the committee. This is a local struggle, a struggle by local community and when 90 percent of them are Christians, you will definitely see them around. And you just cannot term it a Christian struggle because of that and attribute motives. It is not about Christians, Hindus or Muslims, it’s about people. It’s disparaging to identify them with religions.
Ironically, the RSS and the Hindu Munnani raise massive amounts of money in Christian countries.


The Central government has tightened noose around certain NGOs which are fighting against the nuclear plant; activists too have stepped up their fight

SP Udayakumar, heading the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) opposing the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant, today threatened to launch a legal battle against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his charge that he was receiving funds from the US and Scandinavian based NGOs to spearhead the stir.
Talking to newspersons here, the Anti-nuclear activist said that he would issue legal notice to Prime Minister, Union Minister of state for Parliamentary Affairs V Narayanasamy and former Union Minister E V K S Elangovan for their baseless charges.
He said the Prime Minister and Mr Narayanasamy charged him with getting funds from US and Scandinavian based NGOs, while Elangovan had alleged that he had served three months imprisonment in the US after getting convicted in a drug case and received a sum of Rs nine crore from a foreign NGO.
When Mr Narayanasamy levelled a similar charge couple of months ago, he had served him a legal notice, to which, the Union Minister's counsel denied that the Minister charged him with receiving money from foreign countries.
Mr Narayanansamy, in his reply to the legal notice, however, made a fresh charge that he (Mr Udayakumar) was involved in a financial transaction with 'IDEA', a Sweden based NGO, for serving as a counsel for reconciliation.
Denying the charges, Mr Udayakumar said 'we are truthful to our cause and the government should understand the plight of the people. The government should stop ridiculing the stir.' Replying to a question, he said he was consulting his lawyers and would file the case against the Prime Minister, Mr Narayanasamy and Mr Elangovan in Madras High court after receiving replies to his legal notice. Mr Udayakumar claimed that the anti-nuclear stir received support from various political parties, including MDMK,PMK, VCK and Naam Tamizhar Katchi.
Asked what could be the way out for the impasse, the activist said 'closing down of the nuclear plant is the only way out.' The authorities should convert the Koodankulam plant as a gas based power plant, he said.
The deportation of German national, Sonntag Rainer Hermann proves that he was innocent and had not funded the anti-nuclear struggles, the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), which is heading the anti-Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) struggle at Idinthakarai, said.
Hermann was detained by security agencies from a lodge at Nagercoil on Monday night and was deported on Tuesday morning. S P Udayakumar, convener of PMANE told media persons on Tuesday that Hermann was an anti-nuclear activist, who participated in all anti-nuclear struggles across the globe.
He was present during the struggles at Jaitapur in Maharastra and had visited Kudankulam two years ago. However, he was not involved in any funding, he said. "Through such measures, the Centre is trying to prove its claim that anti-nuclear struggles are funded by foreign powers. The deporting of Hermann itself proves he was innocent and had he been involved in such funding, he would have been detained in India," Udayakumar said. "The Central government and Atomic Energy Commission are spreading false propaganda to tarnish the image of agitators at Kudankulam," he charged.
Meanwhile, R S Lal Mohan from Conservation of Nature Trust, Nagercoil, with whom officials claimed the German was associated with, has also stressed that if the government had proof that Hermann supported the agitation by funding Rs 500 crore, it should have detained him in India.
In a statement to the media, Mohan said Hermann was a nature lover and called him a few times to inform him about the dolphins and other nature-related issues. "He discussed the nature and tree planting movement and was an ordinary tourist living on his own money. He was a frugal man living a simple life with the earnings he saved as a computer technologist. He used to spend his retired life in India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.
He used to stay in low-budget hotels because he couldn't afford expensive accommodation," the release said. Hermann had a high degree of social consciousness and it was wrong to think he supported the anti-Kudankulam agitation, Mohan stressed. He also criticised the way he was handled by the security agencies."