TANSACS gathers evidence of funds going into wrong hands

Report to be submitted to Chief Secretary, Vigilance Department and NACO

The district unit of the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS) has gathered evidence to “expose” a couple of non-governmental organisations (NGO) which are misusing funds allocated for HIV-AIDS prevention activities.

After a preliminary scrutiny of funding records of the last 10 years, a senior district official has concluded that “there is enough evidence to recommend blacklisting of a couple of NGOs in Madurai district which have been amassing government funds meant for HIV-related activities, but they were nowhere to be seen utilising them”.

“My final report will be submitted to the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and the Vigilance Department,” M. Kalirajan, District Programme Manager, TANSACS, told

The Hindu here on Saturday.

Time had come to expose them (the erring NGOs) since it involved government and NACO funds, he said.

Dr.Kalirajan said he would also take up the issue with Madurai District Collector soon.

“Some NGOs operate in two or three districts and they have multiple funding sources. But, the records clearly show they were way behind the given targets in (executing) HIV-AIDS programmes,” he noted.

According to him, each recognised NGO is getting funds to the tune of Rs.25 lakh on an average every year, whereas the fieldwork done by some in tracing new HIV positive cases, and conducting awareness programmes on sexually transmitted diseases, health camps, condom promotion, HIV screening tests or follow-up of positive persons were not up to expectation.

Dr.Kalirajan said the documents available with TANSACS district office showed that the performance of NGOs in counselling and providing treatment for commercial sex workers was also equally bad despite the huge funds received by them year after year.

“I will submit the report to funding agencies and government authorities after another round of thorough evaluation of the records of all the five NGOs functioning in the district in the field of prevention and control of HIV-AIDS,” he added.