It gives me great pleasure to address this All India Conference on the Role of the Voluntary Sector in National Development. I compliment the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission for convening the conference at this opportune moment, when we have just launched the Tenth Five Year Plan. I extend my warm welcome to the distinguished representatives of the Voluntary Sector who have come in such large numbers.

I also compliment my colleague, Shrimati Sumitra Mahajan, Minister of State for Women and Child Development. She took the commendable initiative of organizing as many as four regional conferences of voluntary organizations, last year and early this year. I attended one of them in Lucknow in October and was happy to interact with a large number of representatives of the voluntary sector from North India.

Last fortnight, I inaugurated a National Conference of Panchayati Raj Institutions. Today, I am here to inaugurate a National Conference of Voluntary Organizations. Is there a link between the two? Yes, most certainly there is.

I would like to liken nation-building to a chariot that is driven by five horses. These are: the Central Government; the State Governments; Panchayati Raj Institutions; the private sector; and, last but not the least, voluntary organizations and community-based groups. The chariot will run fast and in the right direction only when all the five horses run in tandem.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that we have not paid enough attention to the voluntary sector in our strategy for national development. After Independence, we allowed the tendency of over-dependence on the Government to grow. For this, both the Government and the people have to share the blame, although I have no hesitation in saying that the responsibility of the Government is greater.

On the one hand, our people were given to believe that Government is the answer to all their needs and problems. On the other hand, those in the Government failed to recognize the need as well as the usefulness of people’s own organizations for better implementation of policies and programmes. They ignored the truth that the spirit of voluntarism and social service runs very deep in Indian society and, if properly harnessed, could be a tremendous force for social transformation.

This over-dependence on the Government has resulted in many negative effects. The most visible negative effect is the stark gap between inputs and outputs — between what governments spend and what society actually gains. For example, successive governments at the Centre and in the States have spent considerable sums on rural development, on drinking water, on afforestation, on road construction, etc. If all this money had been well-spent, our villages would have presented a much healthier look than they do today.

I am not suggesting that the funding on all these programmes is either fully adequate or that it has all gone waste. No. Undoubtedly, we need to spend much more on all areas of social-sector development. It is also true that we have many achievements to our credit.

All that I wish to underscore today is that our country would have progressed faster and achieved more balanced development if we had enabled both the Panchayat sector and the voluntary sector to play their due role in national development.

Friends, it is not enough to admit that we have so far neglected — or, at any rate, not given adequate recognition to — the voluntary sector. We also have to honestly ask ourselves why we neglected it? When I ask myself this question, I have to confess that at least a part of the reason lies in the political culture that we allowed to evolve after Independence, and especially in the past few decades.

Political parties generally tended to focus on sanghathan (organization) and sangharsh (agitation), but did not pay enough attention to samrachna (constructive work). We forgot one of the main teachings of Mahatma Gandhi — that constructive work is the cornerstone of nation-building. If he attached so much importance to constructive work during the struggle for Swaraj — and all of us know how much time he spent treating leprosy patients and keeping his ashram clean, teaching children under Nayi Talim, and creating mass awareness against untouchability — then it stands to reason that we ought to have attached far greater importance to it after Swaraj.

It is not my intention to single out any political party for abandoning constructive social work. Rather, it is the collective failure of our entire political establishment. Learning from the experience of the past five decades, all those in the political sphere should realize that democracy at the grassroots cannot be strengthened without a tradition of public service and a spirit of voluntarism. These promote a culture of cooperation among the people and between the people and the government. They help in strengthening institutions and as the mid-term review of the Ninth Plan, has rightly pointed out, “development is an outcome of efficient institutions rather than the other way around”. When such cooperation becomes a part of people’s ethos, and when institutions become stronger, they remain unaffected by the comings and goings of governments.

It is, indeed, a tribute to the vigor of the voluntary sector that it has survived and thrived in spite of inadequate governmental encouragement and political support. Whenever I go around the country, I am impressed by the devoted social work of many voluntary organizations. Mostly, they are unknown, except in their own little circles. Their leading activists are relatively unsung and unhonored. They are active in a thousand different areas of nation-building — such as integrated rural development, watershed management and traditional rain harvesting, construction of community toilets, woman and child welfare in tribal and hilly areas, etc.

All these men and women, belonging to well-known and lesser-known voluntary organizations, are the real heroes of our national development. Here, I appeal to the mass media to give greater publicity to these heroes and their work, so that they may inspire others, especially the younger generation, to participate in voluntary work. India needs more and more such positive celebrities, men and women who exude idealism, selfless service and a spirit of sacrifice. A nation attains greatness only when these qualities permeate the entire society — not only the voluntary sector but also the various formal sectors.

I hope that your conference will come up with useful recommendations on improving the interface between government departments and voluntary organizations for the delivery of our programmes in areas as diverse as primary education and primary healthcare; technology transfer and tribal welfare; care for the aged and the disabled to care of our monuments; conservation of our natural resources and delivery of financial services to the poor through self-help groups.

No doubt greater involvement of voluntary organizations will help the government in providing more efficient delivery of services at substantially lower costs. At the same time, it brings yet another major benefit to the country as a whole. Here, I am referring to the potential of the voluntary sector to create gainful employment. I do not know whether there is any information with the Planning Commission on the number of persons employed in the voluntary sector across the country. It is a difficult task because the data is hard to come by. But all of us can well imagine that organizations in the voluntary sector have different categories of people — volunteers, paid volunteers who get a nominal honorarium, and regular employees. Among these regular employees are people with diverse professional skills. Often, these organizations themselves impart new professional skills through regular training programmes. Hence, the greater the growth of the voluntary sector, the larger is the number of people it will employ. It is encouraging to note that for many young professionals today, the preferred career choice is with the voluntary sector.

Friends, your conference should also be an occasion for an honest look at the many problems that beset the voluntary sector in India today. Unfortunately, there is a tendency among some organizations to come into existence solely to get government grants. They exist only on paper or, at best, do some superficial work to satisfy minimum requirements. At worst, they even engage in corrupt and unethical practices, often with the connivance of the administrative machinery. Therefore, how to institutionalize corruption-free funding is a major challenge before the government as well as the voluntary sector.

A related challenge is the need to alter the relationship of daata (benefactor) and yaachak (supplicant) between the government and voluntary organizations. The right relationship is that of partnership, in which the government acts as a facilitator and NGOs deliver on what they promise.

There is also the malaise amongst some organizations to be excessively dependent on foreign aid. This can be somewhat offset if our business houses start contributing more to the voluntary sector than they do now.

Some voluntary organizations also tend to be individual-centric with little internal democracy and sometimes transparency. Such organizations find it difficult to outlast their founder. There is also a need for greater cooperation among NGOs themselves. Together, they can achieve much more than if they choose to operate in their own small autonomous areas.

I am glad to see that Planning Commission has already initiated an exercise to build up a database of voluntary organizations in collaboration with CAPART, CSWB and concerned Ministries. The prominent voluntary organizations present in this conference may suggest means for creating NGO networks on special activities. I urge all of you to strive to minimize the unevenness in the development of the voluntary sector in the country, so that the northern and eastern States may benefit from the experience in the southern and western States.

I am pleased to know that the Planning Commission has identified eleven monitorable activities in which the intervention of the voluntary sector will be encouraged in the Tenth Plan. These include all our social sector priorities such as reduction of poverty, maternal mortality rate, infant mortality rate, gender gaps in literacy, provision of gainful employment, etc. Achieving these targets should be our collective mission. I urge the Planning Commission to evolve a policy to empower the voluntary organizations through a special support mechanism to play their due role in achieving this mission. If necessary, we should create a structural and legal framework to enable accredited NGOs to play a more effective role in implementing and monitoring government’s programmes. Our focus should be to create replicable models of NGO-led development and NGO-delivered services that do not depend on Governmental intervention for growth. In doing this, we should actively involve the State Governments and learn from the success stories in each State.

With these words, I inaugurate your conference and wish it all success.

Thank you.