The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday extended the validity of FCRA registered NGOs whose licenses were not renewed by December 31 by another three months in “public interest.”
The extension will however bring no relief to Missionaries of Charities (MoC) , founded by Mother Teresa, as the ministry asserted that NGOs whose request for renewal was turned down will not be eligible to either receive or utilise the foreign contribution in their designated bank accounts.
The MHA had earlier said in a statement that it refused to renew the FCRA registration of MoC on December 25 as “some adverse inputs were noticed,” adding that its registration was valid till October 31 and it was subsequently extended till December 31 along with other FCRA associations whose renewal applications are pending. According to returns filed by MoC, the NGO has over ₹100 crore in its account.
According to Dhaval Udani, founder of DanaMojo, an online payment platform for NGOs, there are no set rules around what can be done on rejection of renewal.
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“The standard practice is to either ask for a review of the decision or re-apply for a fresh application. But for that they would need to know the reason for the rejection of their renewal to correct any shortcomings. If the government does not share that, they may need to approach the Courts," Mr. Udani said.
The Hindu reported on December 28 that the registration of thousands of non-governmental organisations (NGO) and associations that were up for renewal in October 2021 were stuck and the deadline for the same was December 31.
Registration under Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) is mandatory for any NGO or association to receive foreign funds and it is renewed every five years.
The Hindu reported that only around 5,000 renewal applications were processed so far while there are 22,762 NGOs registered under FCRA. Mr. Udani added that "As per a study done by AccountAid on the four Metros and Bangalore the renewal rate was so far 4% as of 21st December, 2021"
In an order issued on Friday, the ministry stated, “…the Central Government, in public interest, has decided to extend validity of FCRA registration certificates up to March 31, 2022 or till the date of disposal of the renewal application.” It added two conditions- the FCRA registration certificates of such entities is expiring between September29, 2020 – March 31, 2022 and that they have applied/apply for renewal on FCRA portal before expiry of certificate of registration. As per FCRA rules, an NGO has to apply for renewal within six months of expiry.
The MHA had earlier given a relief up to September 30 to NGOs whose registration was expiring between September 29, 2020-September 30, 2021 to apply for a renewal. The MHA extended the deadline till December 31.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the amendments to the FCRA Act in 2020 that introduced other stringent compliance measures, many NGOs could not complete the process. Among the changes that were brought in, operationalising a designated FCRA bank account with the State Bank of India’s main branch in Delhi was made compulsory. The bank account could be made operational only after recovering an authorisation certificate from the MHA. Several NGOs had moved court stating that despite fulfilling all requirements to open the bank accounts by March 31, the process was not completed at MHA’s end, which hampered their work as they could not receive foreign funds.
