Centre denies targetting NGOs, says no order against Caritas India

New Delhi, Jun 24: The government, which has been criticised for targeting NGOs, today said that there was no order against Caritas India, an organisation which is affiliated to the Vatican.

A Home Ministry spokesperson while referring to news appearing in a section of media claiming that Caritas India has been been put under "prior approval category", gave details of the case and said the NGO had been remitted Rs 1.6 crore by the Netherlands-based donor which had been stopped.

"A Netherlands-based foreign donor agency Stichting Cordaid has been placed under prior approval category on August 6, 2012. Any inward remittance from this agency to any Indian NGO will be credited only after clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs," the spokesperson said.

He said a reference was received from Standard Chartered Bank's New Delhi branch seeking clearance for crediting of an inward remittance of Euro 2,30,000 (Rs 1.6 crore) from the Netherlands donor agency in favour of Caritas India, which is an NGO working in India registered under FCRA, 2010.

"Comments of security agency were sought and on the basis of the inputs received from them the matter is under consideration in the Ministry," he said.

An official of Caritas India, however, said the case was related to last year when the organisation was notified by the bank concerned.

"We made it categorically clear that if the government had objection over the donor agency, we will not take the money at all. Therefore, no such amount has been debited to our account," the official said.

The government has been cracking on various NGOs and has so far cancelled 15,876 licences of these entities under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act after the NGOs allegedly failed to submit their annual returns and complete other anomalies.

All the organisations were given proper notice by the Foreigners' Division of the Home Ministry with adequate time to reply before their FCRA licences were cancelled, official sources said.

PTI