FCRA nods for 20,000 NGOs cancelled

New Delhi: Taking serious note of violations of various provisions of  (FCRA) by NGOs, the home ministry has cancelled the FCRA licences of as many as 20,000 of 33,000 such organisations till date. Now only 13,000 NGOs are entitled to receive foreign funding.

This was revealed during a review meeting of the Foreigners Division chaired by home minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday.

The ministry’s Foreigners Division gave a detailed presentation to the home minister on the working of NGOs since the ministry started to a review process about a year ago. Sources said the review process is still on.

Out of the 13,000 valid NGOs, nearly 3,000 have already submitted applications for renewal of their FCRA licence, while the ministry has received 2,000 new applications for fresh licences for the first time. In addition, 300 NGOs are currently under prior permission category but not registered under the FCRA and these require prior permission from the ministry every time they receive foreign donations.

The home ministry had renewed the FCRA licence of 16 NGOs through the “automatic” route and all these cases were thoroughly reviewed. Except in two cases, 14 NGOs have been put under the prior permission category.