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Much-hyped NGO projects go kaput

Much-hyped NGO projects go kaput

Author: Joydeep Ray in Ahmedabad
Publication: The Business Standard
Date: January 24, 2003
URL: http://www.business-standard.com/today/story.asp?Menu=24&story=6577

Immediate after the earthquake, along with hundreds of politicians, bureaucrats, media representatives, another hundred of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) also had made their presence felt in the quake-hit villages and towns in Gujarat amid much hype.

Two years later, the number of Toyota Qualis owned by NGOs have gone up to 300, more NGO employees are seen making rounds on the dusty roads of Kutch district, the epicentre of the quake and they all claim that they had done a great job and still doing that.

Now taking a stock of the latest situation and contribution of the NGOs, flooded with funds from India and abroad, a different picture comes before the people and obviously the government. So far, the 100- odd NGOs active in various earthquake rehabilitation projects, have been able to construct only 6,766 houses in all 19 districts.

In the joint-ventures with the state government, the NGOs have till date constructed another 30,289 houses where NGOs and Gujarat government have a 50:50 partnership. A total number of 81 NGOs had adopted 312 villages in the state with major chunk of more than 150 villages in Kutch district alone, besides large number of villages in Rajkot, Surendranagar and Patan districts.

So worse is most of these NGOs performance that even the officials of the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority (GSDMA) are not much happy with them as being the nodal agency for the rehabilitation works, in case of delays or any fault, ultimately GSDMA is being held responsible.

"In the first few months following earthquakes, the whole world continued blaming us for not doing anything and all credits were given to the NGOs, which always maintained close relations with the media and even invited various media teams from across the country and abroad to show their projects. We remained silent and now after two years, the statistics have revealed what exactly is the contribution of the NGOs in the rehabilitation works," commented a senior bureaucrat of state government.

Under the schemes of Private Public Partnership Programme (PPPP), 43,809 houses were to be rebuilt but till date only, 50 per cent work has been done, that too in most of the cases not at par with the standards set by the government itself. In few villages of Kutch district, the situation is worst where even after two years, the huge publicity materials, like billboards and banners of the NGOs adopted such villages only have remained, piles of bricks are lying but the construction is yet to started.

Villagers who opted for the PPPP schemes with a thought that under this scheme, their housing problems will be solved faster than the 100 per cent government undertaken projects, now have been regretting. Though when enquired by Business Standard, a number of leading NGOs denied to share the reasons behind delays in completion of their assigned works, some of them also said that scarcity of funds have been causing the delays.

"We thought that we will be having a huge fund by which we will be able to construct an ideal village and accordingly, we started our job. But now, the donors have changed their minds and we are in trouble," said an official of a multi-state NGO.

Requesting anonymity, he said, "During the first few months, we all had strong hope that money will be flooded for our good purpose but that did not happen exactly and now we neither can complete construction works, nor can back out." Meanwhile, the innocent earthquake victims in thousands have been suffering for last two years and still do not know how long they will require to wait for a roof above their heads.
 


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