Foreign funds to NGOs: Why better scrutiny is needed
Sanjeev Nayyar T he Foreign Contribution Regulation Act was passed in 1976. It seeks to regulate receipt of funds by non-governmental organisations (NGOs). It is managed by the Union ministry of home affairs. Any organisation that wants to receive contributions from abroad has to apply and get approval from the home ministry. All remittances are received into a single bank account of a scheduled bank. The NGO has to annually submit audited receipts and payments account, balance sheet, etc to the home ministry. The ministry scrutinises the returns to ensure that contributions received for a particular purpose are used for that purpose only. It does a detailed check of randomly picked associations and then collates the data received to present the FCRA Annual Report, i.e. uploaded on the ministry's web site here . As on March 31, 2009, there were 36,414 registered associations under FCRA. These organisations could be religious, social, educational, cultural and educational ...