JOIN USThe bill to amend the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act, passed by Parliament this week, will put more pressure on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and make their functioning more difficult. The stated aim of the amendment is to bring about transparency in the working of non-profit bodies, to ensure that there is better compliance with the laws. But in actual practice, the provisions of the bill will only impose more restrictions on the working of NGOs. These include putting a limit on administrative expenses at 20% of the foreign donations received, a ban of transfer of funds received under the FCRA to any other outfit, the mandate that they should open an account with a State Bank of India (SBI) branch in New Delhi, and sweeping powers for the Ministry of Home Affairs to cancel the FCRA certificate of an NGO.
The government has been hostile to NGOs from the beginning. It has introduced many policies to hurt them. The FCRA has been an important weapon to hurt them with because many NGOs are dependent on foreign donations. This very government amended the FCRA to enable political parties to receive funds from abroad secretly and to keep such donations from being probed, but the most unnecessary questions are asked when even the best NGOs receive foreign funds. The government has over the years made the FCRA provisions increasingly stringent in their application to NGOs. The latest restrictions go to unreasonable levels. Capping the use of foreign funds for administrative expenses at 20% does not make sense without consideration of the nature of work done by different NGOs. The restriction on fund transfer ignores the fact that many NGOs fund others and also seek their help in their operations. The compulsion to open an account with SBI, that too at a Delhi branch, is clearly aimed at surveillance.
The inference is that the latest amendments are more a means of harassment than an attempt to make NGOs more transparent and accountable. There are lakhs of NGOs in the country and about 20,000 are registered under FCRA. They function in various fields like healthcare, education, environment, gender issues, child welfare and human rights. Most of them do excellent work in areas where the government’s efforts do not reach. Many of them have been active even through the Covid-19 pandemic, stepping in where governments have failed. Some NGOs may have violated laws or otherwise erred, but it is wrong to use the power of law-making to constrain and punish all of them. Citizens and civil society must ask, are NGOs receiving foreign funds dangerous or are political parties receiving foreign funds secretly more dangerous for the country?