Karnataka NGO’s Directory

Compiled by M.H Ramesh, Ponnaswammy N

Niruta publications,

 Bengaluru 2012,

 Price: Rs.750

After more than a year’s painstaking work and persistence, this Directory has been published. It contains information about NGO’s in Karnataka, such as name, address, contact person with phone number, the objectives of the NGO, and the services provided by them. Not all the NGO’s cooperated by the information especially about the types of services provided.

It is possible to generate more information about the NGOs by scrutinizing the available information and then project the total number of NGOs in the country. Five districts, Bangalore Urban (290), Mysore (150), South Kannada (153), Bijapur (145) and Raichur(110) have more than 100 NGO’s and together they have nearly 800 NGO’s i.e. more than half of the total number of NGO’s in Karnataka. There are three districts with less than ten NGO’s. They are: Chamaraja Nagar (9), Hassan (7), Chikkamagalur (9). Surprisingly a backward district like Bidar has 66 whereas more developed districts like Kodagu (28), North Kannada (22) and Udupi (29) have NGO’s numbering 20 to 30 and Mandya only 14.

The total number of NGO’s in Karnataka listed in the Directory is 1363. Districts like Yadagiri and Ramanagar are missing . These Districts may have been covered as part of the undivided original Districts. Making allowance for missed NGO’s for various reasons, there may be about 1500 to 1600 NGO’s. Taking this as a base, we may estimate that there may be 50,000 to 60,000 NGO’s in the country and more than half of them may be in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Delhi, U.P., and West Bengal. A perusal of the information provided by the NGO’s indicate that about 10 per cent of these are providing the traditional social service like institutional and non-institutional care for the aged, women and children and counseling services for de-addiction and H.I.V affected population. Another two or three per cent of NGO’s which include multi-service, multi-location NGO’s, may be providing development-oriented services to the tribal women and children such as advocacy of rights, empowerment, income generation through self help groups and poverty alleviation. A total of 13 to 15 per cent of NGO’s may be considered as providing social and welfare services to the needy population.

                                                                                                           

Shankar Pathak
Rtd Prof, Delhi University 
Deptt Of Social Work