Thanks to Kudankulam, NGO working on tsunami relief has funds frozen

In the new regime regulating foreign-funded NGOs, the Home Ministry seems to have made it quite clear that it is in no mood to justify or explain its actions to those are affected by it, even when the action is as drastic as prohibiting foreign contribution or freezing bank accounts. An NGO in Tamil Nadu, despite its 30-year record of complying with the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) has been slapped with an order freezing its bank accounts without providing any evidence of irregularity on its part. Since late 2011, many foreign-funded NGOs in Tamil Nadu have received notices - which contains a list of 32 questions - from the monitoring unit of the FCRA division of the Home Ministry seeking to examine their accounts. See the questionnaire here , here and here . While the notice makes no reference to the context for the examination into the NGO’s accounts, the Prime Minister in February made government’s motivation abundantly clear. In an interview to Science magazine, he blamed international NGOs for supporting the ongoing public protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in the coastal district of Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu. [caption id=“attachment_251797” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The government has blocked funding to NGOs it said had funded the anti-Kudankulam nuclear power plant protests. Firstpost”]  [/caption] Going by that theory, one of the factors that seems to have cost the Kanyakumari-based Rural Uplift Centre (RUC) its foreign contribution seems to be its past association with Idinthakarai village, which during the last seven months has become the centre of the struggle against the nuclear power plant located in the neighbouring village of Kudankulam. In the aftermath of the tsunami that hit the Tamil Nadu coast in 2004, the RUC was entrusted by the district administration five villages - among them Idinthakarai - to carry out rescue and rehabilitation work. RUC’s work in Idinthakarai - which ended in 2008- involved medical assistance, building temporary shelters and toilet facilities, providings boats and nets, repair work and providing equipment to village school science lab. “From 1982 onwards we have been filing FC-3 (annual return of foreign contribution) to the Home Ministry every year, within the time frame and in the prescribed format. You’ll find it on the FCRA website. And for 3-4 years now, we have also been filing a brief activity report, which is not mandatory,” says Maria James, secretary, RUC. When RUC received the notice with 32 questions in October, James wasn’t completely surprised because ten years ago they had received a similar notice of inspection, following which a team had come from the FCRA. At that time, however, no questionnaire was sent. “They came, spent three-four days and went back. So we thought, that this notice was also a routine inspection. We didn’t think that it had anything to do with trying to implicate us in Kudankulam anti-nuclear protests,” she said. It took RUC, 12 full days to put together documents sought by the FCRA questionnaire. The had been asked to submit accounts for the last 3o years! Even though, says James, the income tax law requires accounts of only the last six years to be kept. “Much of the information they had sought was only duplication of details we’ve already submitted to them. We had to make copies of transactions dating back to 1982. Getting copies bank passbooks from 10-15 years ago was a challenge. We couldn’t find one and even the banks couldn’t give us a copy since all records are computerised now. The package, with all documents, weighed 3.85 kg. We had to courier it,” James said. But that wasn’t the end of it. The inspection team from the FCRA arrived at RUC in early January. During their three-day inspection, they made oral requests for more documents. “The documents they asked for, we had already sent in response to the questionnaire. That means the team hadn’t even gone through the material we had sent them in October. The same questions they asked again and again,” she said.  And so some documents were re-sent. Then came a third request for documents, which James handed over personally when he was in Delhi on other business. “Then they wanted some more details. And on February 8, I dispatched the final set. But before it reached them, they sent an order prohibiting foreign contribution and freezing the bank account on February 9,” James said. The order reached RUC on Feb 13. Based on the kind of details the FCRA officials were asking, did James guess which way the investigation was going? “They were asking for purchase bills, receipts, beneficiary details, acknowledgement.We gave them copies of tenders, agreements from suppliers, bills, receipts, acknowledgment of beneficiaries. We also submitted decisions of the executive committee, stage by stage approval of the quotations. We wanted them to be be satisfied. It didn’t strike us that it had anything to do with the protests because we were not involved,” she said. It was when the team took 17 vouchers that belonged to 2011-12 that they, says James, had a suspicion that it could have something to do with Kudankulam protests. “The vouchers were for a training programme on organic farming and some of the resource persons were government officials. So verifying beneficiaries of those vouchers shouldn’t be a problem. On that night, because of a power-cut, we couldn’t find the documents immediately. The hotel bills, the daily allowance details of the participants, and the training and the attendance report of the programme are all on record,” she said. RUC has received no response to its revision petition to the Home Ministry  sent on February 21. It has now filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court. Appealing to the government, James said, “Since 1982, we have been involved in supporting the various initiatives of central and state government. None of the activities are in anyway detrimental to the public or national interest. We are upholding the Constitution. We hope govt will do justice.”