NEW DELHI: After introducing a stricter regime for foreign funded NGOs and associations recent amendments to the Law of Regulation of Foreign Contributions of 2010, the government has now revised the 2011 Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules to make them more stringent.
The rules require that all entities seeking registry or prior permission under FCRA to exist for three years and have spent a minimum of Rs 15 lakh on its main activities for the benefit of the society during the last three financial years.
It is important to note that the new rules add a sub-rule to Rule 3, which establishes that the organizations specified in clauses (v) and (vi) of sub-rule 1, which cover the organization of farmers, workers, students, castes and organizations communities not directly aligned with parties but advancing political interests Of these groups, as well as the teams that habitually participate in political actions such as bandhs, hartal, rasta roko, will be considered political in nature if they participate in party politics. Entities of a political nature are prohibited from receiving foreign contributions.
The new rules have also increased the application fee for the grant of registration to Rs 5,000 from Rs 3,000, and for the grant of prior permit to Rs 10,000 from Rs 5,000 In addition, the fee to be paid with the application for renewal of the FCRA registration has been set at 5,000 rupees. If an application for renewal of the registration is not received or the application is not accompanied by the required fee before the expiration of the validity of the registration certificate, said validity will be considered to have ceased from the date of termination of five years to from the date of granting of the registration certificate, in accordance with the Foreign Contribution Rules (Regulation) (Amendment), 2020 notified on Wednesday.
The central government, in exceptional cases or in cases where a person is controlled by the central government or a state government may waive the conditions that require entities applying for prior registration / permission under the FCRA to exist for three years and have spent 15 lakh rupees on their main activities aimed at benefiting society during the past three years If an entity wishes to include its existing capital investment in assets such as land, buildings, other permanent structures, vehicles, equipment in the calculation of its expenses during the last three years, the principal officer will have to commit that the assets will be awarded. . henceforth with the person until the validity of the certificate and will be used only for the activities covered by the Law and the rules.
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