NGOs and corruption

Sir,

This has the reference to the article "NGOs in the dock" published in your esteemed paper on Oct. 17th. Mr. Nishikant Khajuria and Dinesh Manhotra have done well by highlighting the most important topic of 'Voluntarism' under the prevailing circumstances on the local, National and International scene.

Due to departmental inefficiency, red-tapism, corruption, apathy, 5-star culture etc., the pace of development has come to a stand still. Where the Govts fail the voluntary organizations (NGOs) succeed due to their local base, public involvement, transparency in working and dedication to social cause. This is why that there is the trend of privatization of the public sector and the involvement of NGOs in developmental as well as social sector due to the yeoman service being rendered by the 'Voluntary Sector:

This is true that so many NGOs exist on papers only which are brought to existence to mint money on the commercial lines. This is highly deplorable aspect. It brings dishonour and defame to the Voluntary sector and is also deterimental to the sustainable development of society, as such, needs to be curbed with a strong hand.

It is a hard and undeniable fact that the official corruption, ruthless misappropriation of funds and dare-devil dacoity upon the public exchequer is the root cause of our backwardness as well as corruption among certain NGOs. For instance, only those NGOs are alloted projects who pay illegal gratifications to the concerned Govt. officials and thereafter pay regular commissions. No NGO can misutilize funds without the active connivance of the concerned officials. In this article there is a reference to mis-utilization of funds by a Jammu based NGO. In this fraud, not only this NGO but the high official at the State and Central level are also involved and have been booked by the CBI as per news item published in the Daily Excelsior.

The Departmental corruption has maimed the pace of our progress rather relegated the rural areas and poor people to further backwardness and impoverishment. We do not defend the erring NGOs but also want to invite the attention of the learned correspondents to the official corruption, the mother of all evils.

Yours etc...
O P Thakur,
Doda

Sorry State of J&K Cricket

Sir,

Please refer to news item "J&K Cricket Association created history-5 cricketers failed Medical Test "That appeared in your newspaper dated 17/10/2004. Your newspaper deserves Kudos for bringing out bad state of affairs prevailing in the J&K Cricket association. It is not that there is dearth of good cricketers in our State.

But fact remains that the persons who are running this association are not at all interested in giving justice to the deserving cricketers. Being a die hard fan of cricket, I do not miss any opportunity to watch cricket activities in the stadium every day. It is really unfortunate and inhuman that boys who displayed their full talent during so called trials and played well in the match between Jammu & Kashmir were not given even one chance to prove their worth, whereas contrary to that boys who look overaged even from their appearances were preferred by the selectors for the reasons best known to them. This is a serious lapse on the part of selectors in General and association members in particular. Let the whole bungling be probed and only then truth will come out automatically.

We should not forget that even after 50 years of cricket our State could not produce even one cricketer at national level (Barring Ashwani Gupta & Surinder Singh who represented North Zone on their abilities). Unfortunately we don't learn from our mistakes read misdeeds. This is right time that J&K Cricket's house is put in order so that cricket in saved in the State.

Yours etc...
Aditia Gupta
Kachi Chhowni,
Jammu.