Kashmir is a well-knit society. People help each other here in grave situations. As a general thumb rule no one goes to bed hungry in Kashmir. People dying of hunger is unheard of in Kashmir from last 90 years. Kashmiris have preserved an ecosystem wherein everyone survives with the help of the others.
However, there are always black sheep in every community. There are self-interested people in every nook and corner of valley who in the guise of helping others often end up minting a huge sums of money for themselves. Ever since 1990, Kashmir has gone through horrible times and the result is the mushrooming of NGOs. A good majority of these NGOs are being run by the relatives of powerful men. They get all the necessary certifications using their contacts and then starts a cycle of converting black money into white.
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Funds are sought worldwide wherein the NGO people pose as helpers of victims of violence. Funds pour in and then fictitious events are created which are mainly photo ops. There is no direct transfer to beneficiaries accounts, even we heard there are few social media pages, who are using their personal accounts for collecting funds from local people.
The Covid-19 crisis has thrown a huge galaxy of organisations who pretend to be working for people. However, there is no accountability process in place. Nobody knows how much funds came in the accounts and how much was actually distributed. The need of the hour is to create a commission whose primarily job should be to audit social organisations and NGOs. Irrespective of who is in the managing bodies of these NGOs, Trusts, Social media pages, they need to be audited in a free and fair way. Let us all know what happened to the money we all donated generously.
