66 Tamil Nadu NGOs on Centre’s ‘bad list’ of 924, Odisha has most

CHENNAI: After barring 1,000 non-governmental organisations from receiving foreign aid over charges that they misutilised such funds, the Narendra

Modi government

has now released a list of blacklisted

NGOs

– a move, it said, will help the general public know about performing and non-performing organisations in their areas.

The ministry of women and child development released the names of 924 organisations – primarily those working in the field of women empowerment – that have been categorised as non-performers.

In a report released on its website, the ministry was vague on the criteria considered to identify NGOs as non-performing — those that were blacklisted by any ministry, autonomous body or agency, further funds to the organisations were stopped based on poor performance, defaulters and those that are not registered with NGO Darpan portal, maintained by the central government’s policy think tank NITI Ayog. The report does not mention on what basis they were blacklisted or what they defaulted on.

According to the report, Odisha has the highest number (289) of “non-performing” organisations, followed by Andhra Pradesh, where nearly eight in every 10 NGOs are blacklisted. Tamil Nadu, which stood fourth, has 66 such societies or establishments, most of them in Madurai, Vellore and Kancheepuram. The list, the ministry said, was prepared with the help of data given by different bureaus under it, and information collected by the states.

Across the country, 855 organisations were categorised as performers, including 49 in Tamil Nadu. The parameters for this are more specific in the report compared to the other list: Those at present implementing any scheme of the government, participation of the NGO in a conference organised by the ministry in October last year, awards and recognition and registrations with NGO Darpan and under Foreign Contribution (regulation) Act (FCRA).

TOI contacted a few of these blacklisted organisations. Six of them said they were unaware of being on the list. “Every year we have been getting funds from the state. We didn’t have the slightest indication that we would be blacklisted,” said Saya Devi, founder of Jayam Trust, which runs a school for specially abled children in Padi, Chennai. “If we are on that list, the least the government can do is tell us why,” she said.

This isn’t the first time the Modi government has tried to rein in NGOs. In 2016, at least 25 of them lost their licences to receive international funding because of their “anti-national” activities, while around 11,000 lost licences for failing to renew them, shrinking India’s pool of foreign-funded organisations to a little more than half the number it used to be.

U Vasuki, central committee member of the CPM, called the latest move a “calculated step”. “If transparency is what the government wants, why hasn’t it dwelt on the basis on which these organisations were blacklisted,” she asked. The government, she said, has a track record of harassing organisations that don’t toe its line.

However, some felt releasing the list was informative for them. “Many of these organisations receive a lot of funding under corporate social responsibility. We have no database to check which ones are recognised and which aren’t. This list would help guide us,” said the regional head of an association of software and services companies who did not wish to be named.


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