Insurgent groups of the North-East are trying to fund their unconstitutional activities through centrally-funded Government schemes. The Woman and Child Development (WCD) Ministry has received as many as 400 applications from Manipur alone for grants to the tune of Rs50 lakh each for Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP). Upon scrutiny, all of these applications turned out to be filed by fake NGOs fielded by insurgent groups.
“We received at least 400 identical applications under different names from Manipur. We sent the complete lot to the State police, which submitted a report to the WCD Ministry saying these were insurgent groups applying in the garb of NGOs,” said WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi to The Pioneer. “Since we are studying each and every application very carefully, we are realising how these non-existent NGOs are applying for funds as the loopholes are on the face. While the proposal is in the name of ‘X’ NGO, the balance sheet and supporting documents submitted are of ‘Y’ NGO,” she said.
Citing similar examples, Maneka said several hundred identical applications were received from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. At least six identical proposals were received from Odisha. The WCD Ministry received 90 per cent fake applications for the scheme. Data shows that of the 3,500 proposals received for grants under the STEP scheme, over 3,200 turned out to be fakes or duplicates.
“What is shocking is that similarities are so striking because the balance sheets are duplicate, proposals are alike, the photographs used to corroborate claims are same and so much so that even the language and format is completely identical,” said the WCD Minister.
“It shows that all these fake NGOs are probably going to the same agent to get their proposals drafted,” she said. The Ministry has an annual corpus of Rs30 crore to disburse funds under the scheme. Under the scheme, the NGOs are given funds to train women in skills like tailoring, computer science, handcrafting, food production etc, which can in-turn empower women find jobs or become self-employed.
So far, only about 300 applications have made it to the second round of screening. “We are certain that our team of researchers, who are studying the projects, will pull out more anomalies in the projects,” said Maneka. Distressed on the “quality of applications”, Maneka has issue fresh advisory to applicants seeking grants under the STEP programme.
To stub the problem, the WCD Ministry has decided to put up the entire list of applications and reasons for rejection or acceptance online. “Since we have limited means of blacklisting them, as they can always come up with a new name or new registration in future applications, we have decided to label them fake,” she said.