The Home Ministry has warned of taking penal action against NGOs which change office bearers without taking its approval, saying replacement of key functionaries of FCRA registered organisations without prior permission is a violation of law.
In a notification, the home ministry said incidents havecome to light that some NGOs, having registered under the Foreign ContributionRegulation Act (FCRA), have changed their office bearers without its approvaland without updating this data on a real time basis through the onlineapplication meant for change of these details.
The ministry told the NGOs to submit applications foraddition/ deletion/change of details about office bearers/ key functionaries byJuly 7, failing which penal action will be initiated against them.
“It may be noted that the online application for anyservice must be signed by the chief functionary of the association and the nameof the chief functionary/ signatory must also be reflected in the list ofoffice bearers/ key functionaries,” the notification said.
Ever since the Narendra Modi-led government came to power in2014, the central government has started scrutiny of the activities of NGOsleading to cancellation of their FCRA registration, which allows them to getforeign funding.There were a total of 23,176 FCRA registeredNGOs in 2016-17, which has now come down to around 12,000.