Home Ministry to seek public opinion on FCRA amendment

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) The Union Home Ministry will elicit the views of all concerned as part of the consultation process to amend the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act of 1976 to efectively tackle the issue of terror funding.

A one-day seminar will be held for this purpose at Chennai on September 29.

The main focus is to discuss the applicability of the FCRA to the NGOs.

Ministers of State Sri Prakash Jaiswal and S Reghupathy will attend the seminar, which assumes significance in the context of the preparation of the draft of a legislation to amend the FCR Act. The amendment legislation will soon be introduced in Parliament after consideration by the cabinet.

Home Ministry sources said the role of enforcement agencies in checking foreign fund flow for terror activities would also be discussed at the seminar.

There are 32,000 organisations registered under the FCRA. Out of this, 500 have been granted permission to accept foreign contribution automatically and 18,540 are reporting organisations.

During 2005-06, a sum of Rs 6257 had been received as foreign contribution.

UNI SH MIR RS1935