Congress - a profitable NGO

http://www.mediacrooks.com/2014/06/congress-profitable-ngo.html#.U7G-YBCO7bo

Please read the post above. My comments

There is no need to convince people of Congress corruption, especially MediaCrooks readers. However, creating conspiracy in every govt act is preposterous. Read RaviNar's lines 

“To put it bluntly, the BRLF is nothing but a “broker” between NGOs and the GOI. It will “funnel” funds to NGOs of its choice (or Sonia’s choice?) across the country (I couldn’t find a website of theirs, if they have any). Who are these people accountable to? And what is the brokerage and other perks that members of this BRLF will enjoy? And under an MOU an amount of 500 crores has been pledged to this “Senior NGO”.

This BRLF is an immoral baby of an outgoing govt with no purpose but to favour the “pet” NGO operators of the Congress and Sonia Gandhi.”

You don't need to create a autonomous body like BRLF and it is not the only way to "favour the pet NGO's". It is not difficult to audit and determine the flow of funds and its use, especially if government is funding it. So long as the funds are used in a proper way, there shouldn't be any objection. If Govt is so concerned about the credibility of people in BRLF, it can replace them or altogether remove this.  However consider below statements:

“What the hell is anyone to do if the govt itself goes around forming NGOs? Have they concluded all the State govts

and Panchayats are useless bodies?

If you look at the areas that BRLF has chosen to concentrate on, all of them have state govts and panchayats. So this farce was played out for the pleasure of someone it seems

Govt cannot become an NGO”

This is funny,that the great RaviNar is ranting like a commie union leader. The performance of govts in these regions targeted is dismal. When there is so much emphasis of public private participation, including private players in growth and development, there is no reason why CSO's/NGO's can't operate in welfare or development programmes of Govt. Govt has every right and it does makes sense to take the support of NGO's if they can better deliver or required on temporary basis. When you need to scale up rapidly or handling emergency situations like disasters or others, there is a significant role, NGO's can play along with Govt machinery. Read below the reasons stated for BRLF creation

"Some C.S.Os working in this region have managed to work with communities and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) to leverage Government funds and there have been outstanding achievements in social mobilization, integrated natural resource management, forest related livelihoods, non-farm enterprises and several other activities.

However, even in many of these successful cases, adequate funds flow to the community from the Government sources still did not happen due to lack of timely coordination and facilitation. The other constraints faced were inadequate provisions and releases for capacity building of community based organisations (viz. Self Help Groups, Producers’ Organisations, SHG Federations, Gram Sabhas etc.) and institutional support costs of the CSOs.

As a result, on the one hand the CSOs could not scale up their successful interventions, and on the other, the Government funds could not be optimally utilised. Hence, the desired developmental outcomes were not achieved.

It is, therefore, necessary to look at a new model of cooperation wherein Government proactively engages with private philanthropies, public and private sector undertakings (as part of their corporate social responsibility) as well as other stake-holder groups to raise resources to support and scale up proven interventions of CSOs in this priority region. Alongside, a competent facilitation mechanism needs to be created so that funds under various flagship programmes can be effectively accessed and utilised by the intended beneficiaries to improve livelihoods, reduce poverty and narrow the development deficit."

The focus and emphasis should be on outcomes. And then there is a problem of "foreign funding". Why can't govt promote NGO's who are performing and doing good to society? Govt cannot become an NGO, but can involve NGO's to help it. At best this is an experiment and there is no harm in experimenting if it delivers results.