Are NGOs creating development in India or does a large number of NGOs represent the Indian system’s failures? Such a high number of NGOs in the country means that instead of development we are stepping towards backwardness. The people getting acknowledgement as change agents are actually coming into the picture just because there is a vacuum generated by the system and this vacuum is becoming bigger day by day. People like us who claim to be social activists are actually the by-product of this system’s failure.
Don’t you think that as soon as an NGO achieves its objective, they should shut down? Instead of this, they are becoming professional organizations for so-called social development. There are exceptional organisations that are really working for good causes but no NGO has come forward to say, ‘OK, we have achieved our target and this particular region does not need us anymore’, which is exactly what should happen. But instead of this, they just show proposals that demand double or triple resources from last year. So what does this exactly mean? Are they developing India or making a big dig of the nation?
Why we are creating so many parallel systems in every sector instead of making the existing ones more capable? Yes, it is not easy but creating a completely new system to fulfil the gap made by a previous system only complicates the whole process. And these parallel systems are not supporting each other, they contradict, criticize, and compete with each other.
Let’s take an example of education, there are several schools and colleges in India, many do not get recognition at the national level but that does not mean that they don’t provide education. Just because they don’t have brand value associated with them, people do not value them in jobs or in the business arena. So what solution do we come up with? We start vocational training courses, barefoot colleges. And these are not in limited numbers, they are growing as an industry now. Some of them also formed NGOs, trusts, educational societies so they can save tax, and for what? To hollow the same system.
Why are industries, in the name of Corporate Social Responsibility, and even in some cases the government, funding these NGOs? Can’t we utilize this money to enhance the capacity of our existing system so that our local level schools, colleges can also compete with IIT, IIMs? It may sound harsh but if we really want development, these NGOs / social organizations should be shut down as soon as possible and we should start putting our energy and money into the existing system.