Foriegn Funds To NGO's

Foreign contributions or donations to any registered organization in the country will now be monitored more strictly. The home ministry has come out with stringent rules which include banning 'organizations of political nature' from receiving foreign funds and asking NGOs to register themselves with the government after every five years.

The Foreign Contribution Regulation rules, which came into force on May 1, have also fixed a ceiling on administrative expenses of a registered organization so that NGOs cannot arbitrarily show their spending during audits.

As the rules explain, any trade union whose objectives include activities for promoting political goals, any voluntary action group which participates in political activities and any organization which habitually engages itself in or employs common methods of political action like bandh or hartal will come under the category of 'political nature' which is now banned for getting foreign funds.

Doing away with the concept of "permanent" registration, the FCR rules state that all existing registered organizations will have to renew their registration every five years. This provision will help the monitoring agency and banking institutions to keep a tab on such NGOs which have not been active but are somehow getting foreign donations.

The procedure for suspension and cancellation of registration has also been prescribed in the rules. These did not exist in the rules so far. Besides, guidelines have also been framed to deal with bona fide mistakes of the NGOs. The home ministry has put the rules on its website: www.mha.nic.in.