Ahmedabad, DeshGujarat, 20 April 2013

With official documents in hand, in this series I am trying to narrate the details of crorepati non-government organizations functioning in Gujarat – author

Royal Chinmay is just another building in western Ahmedabad’s Judges bungalow area. But then it is also a building that houses three NGOs that have received huge foreign fund in past six years. Good part of the fund transferred to these three NGOs is Catholic funds from European nations. The three NGOs are; Jan Vikas, Dalit Foundation and Institute for Development Education and Learning (IDEAL). The last one IDEAL works as Centre for Social Justice(CSJ).

One thing common in these three NGOs is Mr. Gagan Sethi, whom you perhaps saw criticizing Narendra Modi on TV. As per the details available on respective websites, Mr. Sethi is the President of Governing Board of Jan Vikas, board member of Dalit Foundation, and Trustee of Centre for Social Justice. Mr. Sethi is on board of some other NGOs too, but here we are focusing on only three NGOs described above.

Let’s start with the details of flagship NGO in Mr. Sethi’s bouquet which is Jan Vikas. Some time back I read a story in Indian Express that Avni Sethi – daughter of Mr. Gagan Sethi is going to open conflictorium in Amdavad. According to that article, conflictorium was to exhibit the history of conflict in Gujarat. Similar story then published in the Times of India and other newspapers. I just wondered who could be some people who keep discussing conflicts, and go to the extent of making exhibition on such a bizarre theme? How some people are able to spare their energy and time for such things? Do some people have nothing else to do – like some job or business that we normal people do? How some people make their living out of discussing 2002 further and further on and on and on? I mean, there’s a section of vocal and active left-leaning people who always shout to probe larger plan when there’s encounter or communal clash, but then what is the larger plan of NGOs they operate, or those who fund them?

Now this was my own world of thought, but coming straight to the core part of the story, following are the year-wise figures of foreign money transferred to Jan Vikas:

2011-12: Rs 2,27,15,724.19
2010-11: Rs 1,58,13,029.38
2009-10: Rs 3,56,00,375.00
2008-09: Rs 5,41,61,895.90
2007-08: Rs 6,02,70,120.63
2006-07: Rs 6,26,40,335.50

Total in six years: Rs 25,12,01,480.6 which is over Rs 25 crore! Mind boggling, isn’t it? Before going into the details of the funding agencies, let’s first have a quick look at another two NGOs that function from same building.

Add the total amount of foreign fund received in last six years by Dalit Foundation functioning from Royal Chinmay(C-5):

2009-10 Rs 32453802.99
2008-09 Rs 27836368.32
2007-08 Rs 108608925.15
Total Rs 16,88,99,096.46 in three years(data beyond that not available)

Also add the foreign fund received by Ideal – CSJ which functions from Royal Chinmay(C-106):

2011-12 Rs. 31734340.95
2010-11 Rs. 25075713.11
2009-10 Rs. 33795336.65
2008-09 Rs. 16435136.20
Total Rs 10,70,40,526.91 in four years(data beyond this, not available)

In this article we are focused only at Jan Vikas’s foreign funding( we don’t have data of local funding). So, here it is:

German Christian organization Misereor e.v. is one of the main donors of Jan Vikas. Misereor is German Catholic Bishop’s Organization for Development Corporation. As per the decision taken by German Bishops’ Conference, Father Pirmin Spiegel is head of Misereor.

Another organization – Christian Aid, U.K. is also one of the main donors of Jan Vikas.

Katholische Zentralstelle Fur Entwicklungshilfe(Catholic Central Agency for Development Aid) is also a donor organization that has transferred money to Jan Vikas.

Switzerland headquartered Swiss Agency for Development and Corporation(SDC) is another main donor. SDC has transferred huge amount of fund from Switzerland to Jan Vikas’s account. Going through the documents, we found that more than Rs 50 lakh were transferred to Jan Vikas for providing free legal aid/running legal aid centre in one year! Similarly around Rs 50 lakh were transferred for rural development works. Rs. 4 lakh transferred for sports meet, around Rs 10 lakh were transferred for non formal education projects and coaching classes.

If we take an example of foreign money transferred to Jan Vikas in Ahmedabad in year 2006-07; cash received from Germany was Rs 2.15 crore, Switzerland Rs 2.26 crore, U.K. Rs 1.77 crore and USA Rs 6.7 lakh.

In subsequent years, new foreign funding agencies joined in: The Fund for Global Human Rights, Action Aid, Institute for Social Environmental Transition(USA), , National Education Group Project, International Youth Foundation(Baltimore America), Gray Maters Foundation(Atlanta, USA), Ford Foundation, Centre for Promotion of Social Concerns(Tamil Nadu), Rangoonwala Foundation(Mumbai), Dirshti, NEG Fire(Gautam Nagar New Delhi), HID Forum(Bangalore), Aagaz Foundation(Delhi), Care India(USA), Oxfam etc are among them.

In this series, I have so far stayed away from narrating my own conclusions. The idea is to present the data. And my experience so far says that the readers are very smart to understand the things with given data. More in next article in this continuing series.

Following are details of direct/routed foreign funding to Jan Vikas between year 2006 and 2012:

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