ANANTAPUR: Rural Development Trust (RDT), a 55-year-old organisation serving the drought-hit Rayalaseema region, which is among top 10 NGOs of the country, is facing a crisis as its renewal under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) is still pending.
This will impact more than ₹300 crore-worth medical services that it extends to 8.5 lakh patients every year. Its 3,000-odd staff will go jobless and youth will lose their sponsorship from RDT-sponsored Ananta Rural Sports Village.
Intelligence Bureau (IB) has reportedly filed a report that RDT is involved in religious conversions in Pathikonda area of Kurnool district, based on inquiries made after anonymous persons had complained. This has led to denial of renewal of permission to RDT, which will lead to the organisation stopping all its services.
In its request for renewal, the Rural Development Trust has maintained that it has never encouraged any religious conversions in the past 55 years of its existence. The organisation said it has even dismissed persons from its employment in case they have a tendency of converting people.
Vincent Ferrer was the person who started RDT in Anantapur. His stand had been that India does not need an additional God but requires humanitarian services.
As the FCRA renewal has not come, lakhs of RDT’s beneficiaries have staged silent protests and sent mass representations to the Union government to re-check the allegations.
Sources in RDT told Deccan Chronicle that matters of their organisation are transparent. They are hoping that the FCRA will come soon and the organisation will continue its services in the region.
RDT’s founder Vincent Ferrer, who is no more, had migrated to Anantapur from Spain. He had started the non-profit organisation (NPO) in 1969, which is non-religious and non-political. The organisation operates in over 3,500 villages across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, covering over 4.5 lakh people from economically weaker sections. It deals in education, women’s empowerment, inclusive development, community health and sports for development.
For more than 20 years, RDT has been running three hospitals with total bed strength of 611, which annually treat 8.5 lakh outpatients and 60,000 inpatients. During the Covid pandemic, the trust had converted its Bathalapalli hospital with 300 beds into a coronavirus hospital, which treated 10,000 patients.
RDT runs three inclusive residential primary schools with 264 students and two inclusive high schools with 466 students.
RDT programme director Manchu Ferrer hoped the renewal for the trust will come, as all government agencies from district to national levels are aware of the activities that the Rural Development Trust carries out for people.
