New Delhi:
For some, it's an attempt by politicians to underscore that those who fight against corruption must be willing to be held accountable to the same standards.
So the final draft of the new Lokpal Bill suggests that non-government organizations or NGOs should be answerable to the new ombudsman agency that the bill births and is named after. The nine-member Lokpal will be empowered to investigate complaints of corruption among government servants. And NGOs who are registered to receive foreign funds and donations.
The Lokpal Bill is what anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare and his group of activists have been fighting for this year. Two members of the inner circle - Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi - have been accused of inappropriate financial etiquette within the NGOs they run.
The draft of the Lokpal Bill that is being prepared by a parliamentary committee states, "In quantification terms, the degree of corruption in the non-political, non-bureaucratic private sector in the aggregate is far higher than the political and the bureaucratic classes alone." This committee will meet one final time on Wednesday before submitting its bill for consideration by Parliament. "We fully agree that there is a lot of corruption in NGOs as well as in the media, but Lokpal as it was envisioned since 1968 is meant to be an agency that will cover corruption as defined by the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA). To deal with NGOs there is a Registrar of Society and Trust Act. We need to strengthen it but we demand inclusion of government-funded NGOs as they come under the purview of PCA. For media, Press Council should be strengthened," Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal said.
Of the country's 36,000 NGOs, more than half received 11 crore in foreign funds in 2008-2009.
The Home Ministry has recently ordered an inquiry into nearly 30 NGOs who receive foreign funding that is allegedly being used to fund political unrest.
Last year, a group was set up with officials from the Intelligence Bureau, the Reserve Bank of India and the Enforcement Directorate. The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, which liaises between all agencies that handle economic laws, is the coordinating agency. The group's mandate is to collect information on bank accounts and transactions of NGOs.