Much-Hyped Ngo Projects Go Kaput

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.