Dimapur, July 31 (MExN): The Nagaland Public Rights Awareness and Action Forum (NPRAAF) has appreciated the response of the Department of Social Welfare (DoSW) while also raising questions on some of the other anomalies pointed out by it originally following an RTI.
The Information and Publicity Cell of the NPRAAF today stated that the issue of NGOs maintaining multiple homes and thus availing Grant-in-Aid (GIA) stands clarified, as does the 3% of total project cost of any central/state programme.
However, the “issue of deductions” in GIA to some NGOs remained “unclear.” As per the NPRAAF, it raised the specific point after “physically visiting the beneficiaries who pointed out that they were made to sign receipts quoting higher amount of money but were actually given lesser amount.”
The NPRAAF maintained that it has evidence to “prove this point” and it is willing to “jointly visit such beneficiaries if the DoSW so desires.”
In its ‘RTI reply’ to the NPRAAF, the DoSW had stated, “Individuals are not granted GIA or other monetary assistance.”
However, the Forum pointed out that “a certain individual was found to have been given monetary assistance during the year 2013-14 on the recommendation of National Commission for protection of Child Rights and duly endorsed by State Level Selection Committee.”
The NPRAAF found this “contradictory” to the RTI response furnished by the DoSW and wondered if “any eligibility criteria for central/state programme can be compromised on the recommendations of some commissions/authorities.”
Further, the Department had clarified that any pending payments to NGOs were due to the beneficiaries not coming forward to claim the GIA. In this regard, NPRAAF has earlier cited an instance where “a certain children home expressed surprise that it was also shown as a beneficiary of Rs 80, 000/- in the RTI document. Thereafter only, the particular children home went and claimed the amount from the Department.”
In the light of this, the NPRAAF appealed the DoSW to inform beneficiaries of any GIA available for them “since without being informed, no NGO would have knowledge of such sanctioned benefits for them.”
The Forum also pointed out that there are “several other instances” where the GIA amount given to beneficiaries did not match with the RTI replies furnished to NPRAAF. For instance, in Annexure – I, a “certain NGO” was shown as a beneficiary of Rs. 2 lakh, however, in the A.P.R receipt, the same beneficiary was shown to have received Rs. 1.5 lakh only. Another NGO was shown as a beneficiary of Rs. 1 lakh but the A.P.R receipt showed that the beneficiary received only Rs 80, 000/-, informed the NPRAAF.
“There are several other similar anomalies and irregularities,” maintained the NPRAAF, welcoming a “joint sitting and verification” with the DoSW to understand and resolve the issues.
