India Mulls Tighter Rules for NGOs
New Delhi,June,20,2015:-The Indian government has proposed tighter restrictions on nonprofits that will require them to declare how they raise funds from abroad and what they use the funding for.
Activists described the latest move to rein in the activity of non-governmental organizations in India as “discomforting” and “worrying.”
The proposed amendments to rules attached to the Foreign Currency Regulation Act would require banks to inform the Ministry of Home Affairs within 48 hours if international money transfers are made to an organization.
Within a week of receiving foreign funding, the nonprofit would have to publish details of the transaction on their website, under the new draft rules.
Some 30,000 organizations, which are registered with the government to receive money from overseas, will also have to disclose details about their social media accounts including Twitter and Facebook profiles.
Organizations when seeking to renew their license with the home ministry will also have to list their activities over three years, according to a statement on the ministry’s website posted Wednesday.
The ministry’s statement said organizations would not be permitted to use funds for activities that may be “detrimental to national interest, likely to affect prejudicially public interest, likely to affect prejudicially the security, strategic, scientific or economic interest of the state and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.” It did not elaborate on what such activities might be.
A.K. Dhyani, a home ministry official quoted in the statement said the government was seeking to bring “transparency” and maintain records “in the best possible manner.”
But civil rights groups said the government’s plans were an attempt to restrict criticism and the role of watchdogs in society.
“It is disheartening to know years of good work have been clouded with suspicion,” said Enakshi Ganguly, co-director of the Haq Centre for Child Rights in New Delhi, which receives funds from overseas and whose license is up for renewal this year. “To tarnish every initiative is discomforting,” she added.
Home Ministry spokesman, Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia, said, “The government in no way considers any NGO is misbehaving, the intention of the government is to streamline matters.”
The government barred around 9,000 organizations, including more than a dozen of the country’s universities, along with thousands of non-government organizations from receiving money from overseas earlier this month, saying they had violated national foreign-funding laws.
The organizations had failed to comply with laws regulating foreign currency transfers, which require nonprofits in India to declare annually any donations received from abroad.
India has stepped up moves against nonprofits in the past year since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office, saying they haven’t followed the law. The finances of Greenpeace India and the Ford Foundation came under scrutiny as a result.
Greenpeace India and Ford Foundation were not immediately available for comment on Friday. Greenpeace India has previously said it made a typing error in its financial accounts that was later corrected.
