NGOs received foreign funds to the tune of Rs 58,113.51 crore in three fiscals between 2016-17 and 2018-19, the Ministry of Home Affairs said on Tuesday.
This was disclosed by Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. There are around 22,400 FCRA registered NGOs in the country.
According to him, the highest amount of Rs 20,011.21 crore was received in 2018-19. In 2016-17, the NGOs received foreign funds to the tune of Rs 18,337.66 crore followed by Rs 19764.64 crore in 2017-18.
The figures for 2019-20 is not available at present as the NGOs, which have permission to collect funds from abroad, have time till December 31 this year to file the returns under Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act, 2010.
Reddy said registration and prior permission under FCRA, 2010 is granted to associations/NGOs for five types of programmes i.e religious, social, economic, educational or cultural. The associations granted registration or prior permission have to mandatorily submit online the receipt and utilisation of foreign donations received by them.
He said a monitoring unit of FCRA wing monitors the receipt and utilization of foreign contributions. Methods of monitoring include scrutiny of annual returns, inputs from field agencies, on the spot audit and inspection of the accounts of FCRA Associations among others.
"Further in the new system of FCRA monitoring, all annual returns are to be filed electronically. The Bank accounts of the FCRA registered associations have also been linked to the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) for better monitoring of flow of funds," he added.