Govt drafts bill to prevent misuse of foreign contributions by NGO

New Delhi, Sep 28 (UNI) The empowered Group of Ministers constituted to revamp the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 1976 has drafted a new bill to replace the old act which has failed to prevent the misutilisation of foreign contributions being received by various organisations.

The GoM constituted last year has sent the draft of the new bill to various ministries seeking their response. The responses of Ministries of Finance, Law, Social Justice and Empowerment and Health was earlier expected to come by September 30 but now the Home Ministry has decided to extend the time frame to October 15.

''Once the response from all the ministries was received, they would be deliberated and may be on their basis the bill would be redrafted and then presented before the Cabinet. The new bill is aimed to ensure that foreign contributions received were not misutilised,'' Home Ministry sources said here today.

The country has about 33210 registered organisations which received foreign contributions in 2005-2006. India received Rs 6256 crore during 2004-05. About 2500 associations are registered annually and 500 associations are granted prior permission every year to receive foreign contributions.

Law Minister H R Bhardwaj said replacing the Act was necessary in view of the threat of terrorism and diversion of foreign contributions for various other uses including political which threaten the security of the country. He said that the GoM was constituted as the old act had failed to check the overseas funding of anti-national organisations. He said that like many western countries, it was proposed to monitor foreign remittances above Rs ten lakh being received by various NGOs.

Meanwhile, the Home Ministry is holding a daylong Regional Seminar on Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 1976 in Chennai tomorrow at which various issues pertaining to FCRA and its applicability to NGOs and other individuals, specific issues relating to compliance with various provisions of FCRA, experience of stake-holders, role of enforcement agencies in implementation of the Act, broad overview of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Foreign Exchange Management Act, will be discussed in the seminar.

It will be inaugurated by Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal. Minister of State for Home S Regupathy and the Tamil Nadu Governor S S Barnala will be among those present on the occasion. Nearly 300 delegates representing a cross-section of stakeholders including NGOs, donors, banks, chartered accountants, lawyers, academicians and enforcement agencies will be participating in the daylong deliberations, sources said.

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