Government action against Public Health Foundation of India appears arbitrary and opaque.
The NGO’s main crime, according to the government, is that it lobbied with parliamentarians and the media on matters related to tobacco control.
Last week, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs invoked the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) to bar the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) from receiving foreign funds. Neither the NGO’s track record — it collaborates with the Centre and several state governments on health-related issues including access to drugs, immunisation, HIV prevention, universal health coverage and tobacco control — nor the presence of Union Health Secretary, C.K. Mishra, on its governing board, were enough to save the PHFI from punitive action. The government has justified the action on grounds that the PHFI violated FCRA rules. But, by all accounts, the NGO was not given a chance to respond to the allegations — it could do so only after its FCRA license was revoked.
The NGO’s main crime, according to the government, is that it lobbied with parliamentarians and the media on matters related to tobacco control. The accusation seems unfair because the PHFI has helped the government build up a cadre of public health officials who can take up anti-tobacco initiatives in different parts of the country. It has been a partner of the government — not a lobbying agency. A report of the Lok Sabha Committee of Subordinate Legislation, tabled last year, notes, “They (PHFI) highlighted before the committee the serious repercussions of tobacco use on the health of humans, the effect and impact of printing of big and visible pictoral warnings on different products, cigarette, bidi and pan masala packs on the illiterate and the youth of the country, the position of India vis-a-vis other countries in printing size of pictoral warning on tobacco products.” For the past two years, the government too has been trying to impress the committee — whose members include Allahabad MP and bidi baron, Shyama Charan Gupta — about the desirability of a law making it compulsory that “horrific pictoral warnings” cover 85 per cent of the package surface area of tobacco products. How can fighting a battle, that the government has been engaged in, be construed as lobbying?
Principles of natural justice demanded that the PHFI be given a chance to respond to the charges, before revoking its license. Meanwhile, the government’s action has invited suspicions that it was prompted by the Swadeshi Jagran Manch’s criticism of the PHFI’s funder — the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The government must urgently clear the air on why it has moved against the PHFI.
Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/discipline-and-punish-fcra-phfi-ngo-government-action-against-public-health-foundation-of-india-4629671/
The NGO’s main crime, according to the government, is that it lobbied with parliamentarians and the media on matters related to tobacco control.
Last week, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs invoked the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) to bar the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) from receiving foreign funds. Neither the NGO’s track record — it collaborates with the Centre and several state governments on health-related issues including access to drugs, immunisation, HIV prevention, universal health coverage and tobacco control — nor the presence of Union Health Secretary, C.K. Mishra, on its governing board, were enough to save the PHFI from punitive action. The government has justified the action on grounds that the PHFI violated FCRA rules. But, by all accounts, the NGO was not given a chance to respond to the allegations — it could do so only after its FCRA license was revoked.
The NGO’s main crime, according to the government, is that it lobbied with parliamentarians and the media on matters related to tobacco control. The accusation seems unfair because the PHFI has helped the government build up a cadre of public health officials who can take up anti-tobacco initiatives in different parts of the country. It has been a partner of the government — not a lobbying agency. A report of the Lok Sabha Committee of Subordinate Legislation, tabled last year, notes, “They (PHFI) highlighted before the committee the serious repercussions of tobacco use on the health of humans, the effect and impact of printing of big and visible pictoral warnings on different products, cigarette, bidi and pan masala packs on the illiterate and the youth of the country, the position of India vis-a-vis other countries in printing size of pictoral warning on tobacco products.” For the past two years, the government too has been trying to impress the committee — whose members include Allahabad MP and bidi baron, Shyama Charan Gupta — about the desirability of a law making it compulsory that “horrific pictoral warnings” cover 85 per cent of the package surface area of tobacco products. How can fighting a battle, that the government has been engaged in, be construed as lobbying?
Principles of natural justice demanded that the PHFI be given a chance to respond to the charges, before revoking its license. Meanwhile, the government’s action has invited suspicions that it was prompted by the Swadeshi Jagran Manch’s criticism of the PHFI’s funder — the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The government must urgently clear the air on why it has moved against the PHFI.
Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/discipline-and-punish-fcra-phfi-ngo-government-action-against-public-health-foundation-of-india-4629671/
