Carrying forward the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh's charge that foreign Non-Government Organisations were behind the protests against the anti-nuclear campaign in Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu, the Union Minister, Mr V. Narayanasamy, on Friday said three NGOs were found to be diverting foreign funds for the anti-nuclear campaign.
Licences of three NGOs active in the Kudankulam region have been cancelled after a Home Ministry inquiry found that they were using funds meant for social causes to fuel the anti-nuclear protests.
“These NGOs were receiving funds from foreign countries for social service causes like helping the physically handicapped and eradication of leprosy but these were used for anti-nuclear protests. In fact, the people who are agitating near the plant have been continuing their agitation for the past three months. People are being brought there in trucks from various villages, they are being given food,” Mr Narayanasamy said.
The Government had taken action after it found that some NGOs, receiving funds from the US and Scandinavian countries, were spending huge amounts of money on the agitation.
The Minister said that the three NGOs were found to be violating the Foreign Contributions (Regulations) Act guidelines by not using the funds for the cause they were received for.
He said the Prime Minister's observation on anti-nuclear activists using foreign funds came from the inquiry.
The Prime Minister, in an interview to international journal Science had said that the atomic energy programme had run into difficulties because NGOs, mostly based in the US, did not appreciate India's need to increase energy supply.