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NGOs got ₹55,449 crore as foreign funds in 3 years, Centre informs Parliament
Indian non-government organisations (NGOs) received foreign funding worth ₹55,449 crore in the last three years, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) informed Parliament on Wednesday
New Delhi: Indian non-government organisations (NGOs) received foreign funding worth ₹55,449 crore in the last three years, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) informed Parliament on Wednesday.
While an amount of ₹16,306.04 crore was received by NGOs across the country in FY 2019-20, ₹17,058.64 crore was received in FY 2020-21 and ₹22,085.10 crore in FY 2021-22, the ministry said in a written response in the Rajya Sabha.
Most of these funds have been received by NGOs registered in Delhi under the Foreign Contribution Registration Act (FCRA).
Responding to a question by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament Satish Chandra Dubey, Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai said there were 16,383 NGOs in the country which had a valid FCRA licence as on March 10. Of these, 14,966 organisations submitted their mandatory annual returns for FY 2021-22 under the Act, he said.
On a question related to complaints about the use of funds by NGOs, Rai said, “Some complaints had been received in the past regarding misutilisation or diversion of foreign contributions by the FCRA-registered associations. Such complaints are dealt (with) as per provisions of the Act and the rules made thereunder.”
The data attached in Rai’s response showed that the highest amount of funds – ₹13,975 crore of the total ₹55,449.78 crore – received across the country were by NGOs registered in Delhi.
The Centre has in the past five-six years tightened foreign funding rules.
According to government data, the FCRA licences of over 6,600 NGOs have been cancelled in the last five years for legal violations.
The FCRA licences of non-government organisations run by the Gandhi family – the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) and the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) – were cancelled in October last year. Last month, the FCRA licence of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) was suspended for violating various provisions of the Act.
In November 2020, the MHA made the FCRA rules stricter, stating that organisations which may not be directly linked to a political party but engage in political action such as a bandh, hartal (strike) or rasta roko (road blockade) will be considered to be of political nature. The organisations covered under this category include farmers’ organisations, students or workers’ organisations and caste-based organisations.
In the amended FCRA — the law was amended in September 2020 — the government barred public servants from receiving foreign funding and made Aadhaar mandatory for every office-bearer of the NGOs. The new law also says that organisations receiving foreign funds will not be able to use more than 20% of such funds for administrative purposes. This limit was 50% earlier.
