NGO Officials Will Have To Provide Their Aadhaar Card
NGO officials will have to provide their Aadhaar card, a bill to amend FCRA introduced in Lok Sabha: New arrangement. To prevent misuse of foreign aid, the government has introduced a bill to amend the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) in the Lok Sabha. In these amendments, Aadhaar has been made mandatory for NGO (non-governmental organizations) officials receiving foreign assistance.
Apart from this, there is also a provision for government officials to completely ban the taking of foreign funds. While presenting the bill, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityananda Rai said that these amendments are necessary to bring transparency in foreign aid and its use.
80 percent will have to be spent in work
In the proposed amendments to the FCRA, the limit for office expenses has been reduced to 20 per cent from the amount of foreign assistance for NGOs. That is, the NGO will have to spend 80 percent of the foreign aid in the work for which foreign funds were given. With this, the government can suspend the FCRA license of an NGO for three years and revoke it.
Transactions only from the branch of State Bank, Delhi
After these amendments, now any NGO in the country will be able to get foreign assistance only in the branch of State Bank, Delhi. However, permission has been given to open an account with a local bank for NGOs working in remote areas. The government will release the list of such branches of the bank.
Opposition parties protest
Opposition parties such as the Congress and the Trinamool Congress opposed the amendments to the FCRA. Manish Tiwari on behalf of the Congress and Saugata Roy on behalf of the Trinamool Congress said that the government was tightening the provisions of FCRA to stop foreign aid from religious minority institutions.
The government’s objective is not to regulate foreign aid, but to stop it altogether. Opposition lawmakers called the making of Aadhaar mandatory against the Supreme Court’s decision.
Amendments not related to religion: government
Nityanand Rai rejected the opposition’s allegations, saying that these amendments have no meaning with any particular religion, rather its purpose is to make foreign aid and its use transparent.
He cited the statement of the then Home Minister P. Chidambaram at the time of amending the FCRA Act in 2010, in which he said that half of the nearly 40 thousand NGOs receiving foreign aid are those who do not give any information about it nor do they Audits submit reports.
Exempt for foreign contribution remains
Nityananda Rai said that there is no discrimination in it. Uniform provisions have been made for all religions without discrimination. The foreign contribution exempted to religious organizations in 2010 remains intact.
But it is the responsibility of religious organizations not to deviate from their original purpose, to use it for the purpose for which the money has come.
