NEW DELHI: An
NGO founded by Olympic medalist and nominated
Rajya Sabha MP
Mary Kom, the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust chaired by
Congress leader
Sonia Gandhi, IT industry body
Nasscom and Amnesty International’s Indian arm are among 42 organisations under scrutiny of the home ministry for alleged irregularities in their foreign contribution receipts.
In a written reply to a Lok Sabha question, Union junior home minister Kiren Rijiju said that while 21 NGOs had been served a standard questionnaire to check as part of preliminary inquiry into an alleged violation of the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) or Foreign Contributions Regulation Rules (FCRR), audit and inspection of 21 other associations, including PHFI and many others with an evangelical background, had been completed for similar violations.
Prominent FCRA-registered bodies served the questionnaire include Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet &Society which had claimed massive leaks in the Aadhaar database last year, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust that receives a good chunk of its funds from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Public Health Foundation of India (the latter’s FCRA licence was cancelled last year), Asianet New Charitable Trust and Mary Kom’s boxing training school.
A standard questionnaire comprises a list of 32 preformatted questions put to the NGO to check for any FCRA irregularities noticed by the district magistrate concerned or the intelligence agencies. If the replies of the respondent association are found unsatisfactory, an audit of its FCRA account is undertaken and its books and premises inspected. It is on the basis of this inspection report a decision is taken whether to act against the association under FCRA. The audit and inspection has been completed in case of PHFI, Nasscom and a whole lot of Christian/evangelical associations based in Arunachal and Kerala.
Nasscom CEO Shrikant Sinha told TOI the government had completed a “routine” FCRA compliance audit for its foundation in January 2018. “Post the audit, the foundation has not received any non-compliance notice from the ministry till date. Nasscom Foundation prides itself in having completely transparent and rigorous financial processes and is happy to work with any government department or ministry and provide all data or information as and when required.” Incidentally, it is not usual practice for MHA to reveal names of NGOs/associations under probe for FCRA violations, even less so for NGOs that have been sent a routine standard questionnaire that may or may not lead to an inquiry.
File photo
