Without issuing proper receipts and showing address proofs, the door-to-door collection of charity funds in the name of various organisations for treating cancer patients and feeding the destitute is still underway in different parts of Kozhikode.
The volunteers’ reluctance to receive contributions online and ignorance about their organisations’ charitable works also surprise people.
“Mostly women are appearing as volunteers to collect funds from houses. They don’t give any concrete details regarding the activities of the organisations they represent or hand over any functional contact number,” said a residents’ association functionary in the city. She said some of such volunteers were also found roaming around various public places in the city with the same purpose.
Though there were instructions from the police to discourage such fundraisers, who made their entry during the pandemic with claims of carrying out relief activities, field-level interventions made to verify these claims were minimal. Many such collectors were silently withdrawing from the field as people turned down their requests citing their interest to support the legally operated Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund.
“Most of the fund collectors appear with an unreliable claim that they support poor patients at the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital. When I tried to verify their activities by contacting a phone number mentioned in their leaflet, the number was non-functional,” said a tailoring shop owner from Eranhikkal. He said there should be at least occasional efforts on the part of the authorities to verify such claims.
At the same time, some of the residents’ association functionaries pointed out that there were many women volunteers who were supporting unorganised charity groups with such crowdfunds to take forward their unpublicised support activities for the underprivileged segments. Genuine charity workers should be supported without introducing any blanket ban, they said.
Meanwhile, police officers associated with the community policing scheme said suspicious cases should be reported to the nearest police station for verifications. They also made it clear that any sort of fund collection without proper receipts should be discouraged.
