Acting tough on NGOs receiving foreign contributions, Home Ministry’s FCRA Division has cancelled the licenses of around 20,000 NGOs for accepting donations from abroad in the past two years. According to MHA officials, this means, at present, around 13,000 NGOs are only legally permitted to accept foreign donation after the hard steps taken to find the violators.
The details regarding this were conveyed to Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday during a review of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act Division of the Home Ministry.
The exercise of reviewing the working of the NGOs was started about a year ago and the process is still continuing, official sources said. Among the 13,000 valid NGOs, around 3,000 have submitted applications for renewal while the MHA received 2,000 new applications for registration under the FCRA for the first time.
An additional 300 NGOs are currently under prior permission category but not registered under the FCRA. However, FCRA licences of around 16 NGOs were renewed by the Home Ministry under the “automatic” route and all the cases were reviewed thoroughly. Except in two cases, 14 NGOs have been put under the prior permission category. The papers of the two NGOs are under examination.
As per FCRA, if an NGO is put under prior permission category, it is barred to receive foreign funding from abroad without taking permission from the Home Ministry.
The Modi Government invited criticism from various activist groups after the FCRA Division started checking the violations of NGOs run by activists like Teesta Setlevad, Indira Jaising and Shabnam Hashmi. These NGOs were receiving huge funds from various countries and the probes have found series of violations including pocketing money to personal accounts by many activists.
The probe also forced Ford Foundation to comply with Indian laws.