Spike in foreign funds for NGOs in Tamil Nadu

Call it a conspiracy theory, but if the Centre is to be believed, there could be a link between the hike in foreign funding for NGOs and protests against the Kudankulam plant. Chetan Chauhan reports. NGOs near Kudankulam N-plant and funds they received

Updated on: Apr 4, 2012, 02:36:47 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Call it a conspiracy theory, but if the Centre is to be believed, there could be a link between the hike in foreign funding for NGOs and protests against the Kudankulam plant.

Sources said foreign contribution to 12 NGOs in two districts — Tirunelveli, where the plant is based, and neighbouring Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu — has increased sharply over the last four years, ever since agitations against the plant started. “These NGOs received over Rs 31 crore in 2010-11, with the foreign contribution to some doubling during the agitation period,” a senior government functionary said, adding that the money given is mostly for social causes such as education, health and sanitation.

The Tamil Nadu government was asked by the Centre to register cases against two of the 112 NGOs for diverting foreign funds under the provisions of the Foreign Contribution Regulatory Act. The role of 10 other NGOs in the Kudankulam agitation is also being probed.

The misuse of foreign funds for launching agitations against the government came into the spotlight when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused US non-profit organisations of funding the agitation against two reactors at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant.

"These NGOs… don’t appreciate our country’s need to increase energy supply," Singh said.

The home ministry’s website shows that there has been an overall increase in foreign funding to NGOs in Tamil Nadu, mostly Christian organisations. While the Tuticorin Diocesan Association witnessed a 50% jump in foreign funding, the People’s Education for Action and Community Empowerment (an NGO headed by chief agitator Uday Kumar) received foreign aid of Rs 2.64 crore.

NGOs in Tamil Nadu received over Rs 2,500 crore in foreign funds between 2006-07 and 2010-11.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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