NATIONAL BIOETHICS CONFERENCE
Financing of the NBC
The financing of this conference was done collectively. (a) The initial expenses for the conference were made by the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics from funds earmarked for this purpose. (b) We invited contributions from the collaborating organisers for accommodation and registration fees for their delegates. (c) Some organisations voluntarily contributed additional funds for financing particular activities. This includes PSG Medical College, Coimbatore, which contributed funds for organising the students’ forum. (d) The IJME and Anusandhan Trust (through the CSER – Centre for Studies in Ethics and Rights, Bangalore) and the Ethics Training Project of the Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and the University of California, San Francisco, mobilised the remaining amount through grants, reimbursement of expenses and full-cost registrations. We received financial support from the following sources:- (1) International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada; (2) ICICI Centre for Child Health and Nutrition; (3) HIVOS, Netherlands; (4) Wellcome Trust, UK; (5) Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Mumbai; (6) Actionaid India – AIDS International Training and Research Programme; (7) Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR); (8) International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), New Delhi; and (9) Public Health Institute, New Delhi.
As shown in Table 2, totally a fund of Rs 38,46,354 was raised by the IJME, CSER and the Ethics Training Project in the form of grants. Against this, the total direct expenditure (incurred through the conference co-ordinators and secretariat) was Rs 30,84,293 as on March 31, 2008 (Table 1). In addition, the collaborating organisations incurred expenses for travel for their own participants.
| Table: 1: DIRECT CONFERENCE EXPENSES BY THE IJME AND THE CSER | |||
| Description of expenses | Amount | %age | |
| 1 | Honorarium: For secretariat staff and conference volunteers | 3,03,000 | 9.8 |
| 2 | Communication expenses: Includes expenses for printing, publication, website development and maintenance | 8,70,539 | 28.2 |
| 3 | Main event expenses: Includes expenses for the rent of halls, furniture (chairs, tables, dais, etc), decoration, rent of audio-visual equipments and recording etc. | 11,92,814 | 38.7 |
| 4 | Accommodation: Includes expenses on accommodation of plenary speakers and some participants | 2,89,621 | 9.4 |
| 5 | Travel: For keynote speakers, other invited guests, cost of airfare for those who paid full-cost-registration, fellowships for paper writers, participants and workshop resource persons | 4,10,854 | 13.3 |
| 6 | Overheads and miscellaneous | 17,465 | 0.6 |
| TOTAL CONFERENCE EXPENDITURE | 30,84,293 | 100.0 | |
| Table: 2: TOTAL FUNDS DIRECTLY RAISED BY THE IJME AND THE CSER | |||
| Source | Amount | %age | |
| 1 | Grants received by the IJME | 14,61,354 | |
| 2 | Grants received by the CSER/Anusandhan Trust | 17,85,000 | |
| 3 | Grants received by the Ethics Training Project | 6,00,000 | |
| Total grants | 38,46,354 | 82.3 | |
| Registration and accommodation fees from COs and participants, including full-cost registration | 8,30,000 | 17.8 | |
| TOTAL FUNDS RAISED | 46,76,354 | 100.00 | |
| Table: 3: FINAL INCOME-EXPENDITURE POSITION | ||
| 1 | Total expenditure directly made by the conference secretariat | 30,84,293 |
| 2 | Funds earmarked for activities related to the Second NBC | 5,50,000 |
| Total surplus from grants (2,12,061) and direct income (8,30,000) | 10,42,061 | |
| Table: 4: UTILISATION OF SURPLUS FUNDS: BUDGET FOR 2008-09 AND 2009-10 | ||||
| Description | 2008-09 | 2009-10 | Total | |
| 1 | The national secretariat of the NBC and administrative support to IJME | |||
| Two salaried staff for the NBC Secretariat and the IJME @Rs. 20,000 per month | 2,40,061 | 2,40,000 | 4,80,061 | |
| 2 | Workshops to take forward the work of the Second NBC | 2,00,000 | 2,00,000 | |
| 3 | Initial investment for the third NBC (for printing promotional material, payment of advances, etc) | 3,62,000 | 3,62,000 | |
| TOTAL | 4,40,061 | 6,02,000 | 10,42,061 | |
Of the grants received, Rs 1 lakh is earmarked for payment of honorarium to those presenters who submit full-papers and revise them. Another Rs 2.5 lakh is earmarked for post-conference publications. The sum of Rs 2 lakh has been earmarked for continuing the work of the bioethics conference in Bangalore in the form of training of ethics committee members.
Budget for utilisation of surplus funds
Thus, overall, we are left with a surplus of Rs 2,12,061 from the grants received (see Table 3). This surplus will be used towards organising workshops which take forward the work of the conference. In addition, we have a surplus of Rs 8,30,000 from the direct income of the conference (registration fees, contribution of the collaborating organisations, etc). This will be utilised largely to finance the permanent secretariat of the National Bioethics Conference as also to provide initial investment for the third national bioethics conference. Thus, we have done budget (see Table 4) for the planned expenditure of the surplus funds of Rs 10,42,000 for the next two years – 2008-09 and 2009-10.
