Carrying forward Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's charge, Union Minister V Narayanasamy on Friday said three NGOs were found to be diverting foreign funds for the anti-nuclear campaign in Kudankulan in Tamil Nadu.

Licences of three NGOs active in the Kudankulam region have been cancelled after a Home Ministry inquiry found that they were using funds meant for social causes to fuel the anti-nuclear protests.

"These NGOs were receiving funds from foreign countries for social service causes like helping the physically handicapped and eradication of leprosy but these were used for anti-nuclear protests," Narayanasamy, Minister of State in the PMO, said.

He said the government had taken action after it found that some NGOs, receiving funds from the US and Scandinivian countries, were spending huge amounts of money on the agitation.

"In fact, the people who are agitating near the plant have been continuing their agitation for the past three months. People are being brought there in trucks from various villages, they are being given food," he said.

Narayanasamy said three NGOs were found to be violating the FCRA guidelines by not using the funds for the cause they were received for.

He said the Prime Minister's observation on anti-nuclear activists using foreign funds came from the inquiry.

The Prime Minister, in an interview to international journal, 'Science', had said that the atomic energy programme had gone into difficulties because NGOs, mostly based in the United States, did not appreciate India's need to increase energy supply.