Home Ministry warns 1,200 NGOs

‘Validate accounts for foreign funds’

The Home Ministry has sent notices to over 1,200 NGOs, asking them to validate the designated bank accounts in which they receive foreign contribution, failure of which will invite punitive action, a Ministry circular said.

The list includes Sri Ramakrishna Math, Ramakrishna Mission, Indore Cancer Foundation Charitable Trust, Coimbatore Christian Charitable Trust, Delhi School Of Social Work Society, Hindu Anath Ashram and Madani Darut Tarbiyat.

Single bank account

In a circular, the Ministry said all NGOs registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) should receive foreign donations in a single designated bank account.

“However, it is seen that a number of such organisations have not validated their foreign contribution designated accounts, causing problems for the banks to comply with the FCRA provisions that they [banks] report to the Central government within 48 hours of such receipt or utilisation of foreign contribution,” the circular read.

These associations are required to validate their foreign designated accounts and also the utilisation accounts immediately and send the details, including the bank branch, code, account number, IFSC code and so on through FC 6 form which is available on https://fcraonline.nic.in, the circular said.

“Non-compliance may lead to penal actions as per FCRA 2010,” it said.

A few others NGOs named are Rehmat E Alam Hospital Trust Anantanag, Rotary Club of Mumbai Midwest, JK Trust, Bombay, Goonj, Madina Education and Charitable Society, Nagaland Bible College and the Indian Institute for Nature and Environment Study.

The Modi government, which has tightened the rules for NGOs, has already cancelled the registration of more than 10,000 of them in the past three years for alleged non-filing of annual returns as mandated in the FCRA. In addition, licences of more than 1,300 NGOs were not renewed or were closed in the recent past for allegedly violating various provisions of the FCRA.

Nearly 6,000 NGOs have been asked to open their accounts in banks having core banking facilities.