Centre trying to choke voluntary sector: NGOs

By The HINDU (Vinay Kumar)

NEW DELHI FEB. 23. Representatives of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and voluntary bodies are up in arms over what they call is the ``Centre's attempts to choke the voluntary sector'' by further tightening the flow of foreign funds for development projects in the country.

In an era when the Government is pursuing the second generation of economic reforms and has enacted a mild law like the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), it is the voluntary sector which has not been given any facility in terms of foreign funding.

Acknowledged the world over as an accepted practice, the receipt of foreign funds for development projects by the NGOs pumps the much-needed resources into the sector, supporting governmental efforts and establishing institutions for constructive purposes.

After the NDA Government took over at the Centre in 1998, the voluntary sector faced allegations of misusing foreign funds for illegal, anti-national activities and religious conversions. What has irked the voluntary organisations is the Centre's reported move to replace the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) with a new Act called the Foreign Contribution (Management and Control) Bill, with more stringent provisions. The FCRA, which regulates the receipt and utilisation of foreign contribution to voluntary organisations, was enacted during the emergency to check foreign contribution being used to `destabilise' the Government.

As the NDA Government considers the FCRA too soft, it is keeping the option open of enacting tougher measures relating to the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contributions by NGOs. Highly-placed Government sources say the Bill is yet to be brought before the Union Cabinet.

The proposed Bill plans to involve State Governments and District Collectors in registration of voluntary organisations. Senior Home Ministry officials say the move would end harassment by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials. They argue that a District Collector, as the local authority, would be in a better position to register an NGO and monitor its activities.

Home Ministry officials point out that nearly 13,800 registered organisations submit their annual accounts to the Ministry but their total number could cross 20,000. Officials argue that rapid growth in the numbers of NGOs has made monitoring more difficult and the work has to be decentralised. The proposed Bill envisages penalties by the State Governments if money was not utilised for the stated objective, gives powers to the District Collectors to cancel the registration and make the registration valid for five years.

Though voluntary organisations have welcomed the provision of making District Collectors responsible, they feel it would be detrimental to the very essence of voluntarism and free spirit of working. The Centre would monitor the implementation of the law and also issue guidelines to the States on implementation. Prima facie, it appears to be an attempt to decentralise the mechanism but in real terms it would only tighten the controls over voluntary organisations.

Quoting official figures, the representatives of NGOs say that only 6.6 per cent of foreign funds were used for religious purposes and top recipients of foreign money were two well-known Hindu religious organisations — Maharshi Ved Vigyan Samithi and Sri Satya Sai Trust. The north-eastern States only received 2.09 per cent of the total foreign funding whereas the four southern States — Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala — receive 49.55 of the total foreign fundings. The total foreign funding of NGOs in 1999-2000 was Rs. 3,924.63 crores, a 15 per cent increase over the previous year.

All NGOs are bound to file annual returns to the Income Tax Department and misappropriation of funds, if any, can be checked by the authorities, the NGOs argue. The organisations can be monitored by the Finance Ministry which can also keep a tab on flow of contributions, they say. According to Anil Kumar Singh of the Voluntary Action Network of India (VANI), the FCRA should be repealed and efforts made to create a more conducive environment for the growth and sustenance of the voluntary organisations.