New Delhi, December 20 2009: As many as 833 NGOs and voluntary organisations have been blacklisted by an autonomous body under Rural Development Ministry after they were found indulging in misappropriation of funds.

The Ministry has conveyed information about the matter to the Standing Committee on Rural Development, which tabled its first report on Demands for Grants in Parliament on Thursday.

The Committee was headed by Sumitra Mahajan.

Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), an autonomous body functioning under Rural Development Ministry, blacklisted a total of 833 NGOs and voluntary organisations on November 9 .

Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of such blacklisted organisations followed by Bihar and Tamil Nadu.

The Ministry informed that these NGOs were blacklisted for their indulgence in irregularities including misappropriation of funds, the committee said.

Of the 833 NGOs and voluntary organisations which were blacklisted, 192 were from Andhra Pradesh, 125 from Bihar, 83 from Tamil Nadu, 75 from Karnataka, 72 from Uttar Pradesh, 42 from Rajasthan and 35 from Kerala.

Thirty-two such organisations were from Orissa, 26 from West Bengal, 24 from Maharashtra, 23 from Delhi, 20 from Haryana, 18 from Manipur, 15 from Madhya Pradesh, 13 from Gujarat, 10 from Nagaland, eight from Jharkhand, five each from Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh, three from Jammu and Kashmir, two from Pondicherry and one each from Arunchal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya and Uttaranchal.

The Parliamentary Committee in its report questioned the "Existing checks and balances" of CAPART and Rural Development Ministry and said it would like to know that how could these NGOs and voluntary organisations get selected to receive financial assistance from CAPART.

"Committee feels that the existing checks and balances at the levels of the CAPART and Department of Rural Development are not sufficient to ensure that only credible NGOs get the assistance from CAPART," the report said.

"As a result of this, the said irregularities of the NGOs and voluntary organisations could not be detected before selecting them for receiving assistance," it added.

The Parliamentary Committee recommended that existing guidelines of the ministry in this regard should be strengthened and sufficient publicity should be done about these blacklisted NGOs and voluntary organisations so that they do not manage to get financial assistance from government of India.

CAPART was formed by the government by merging the 'Council for Advancement of Rural Technology' (CART) and People's Action for Development India (PADI) in 1986, as a nodal agency for catalysing and coordinating the emerging partnership between voluntary organisations and the Government for sustainable development of rural areas.

Its principle aim is to involve the people in the implementation of development programmes and promote need-based innovative programmes through NGOs and voluntary organisations.

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