As the Indian government seeks help from the People of Indian Origin in changing the face of rural India, the powerful lobby of the American-Indians has asked the Centre to do away with the restrictions it has put on the contributions to charitable organisations from foreigners.
"The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) regulations make it virtually impossible to lend our unrestricted support to non-governmental organisations," said Thomas Abraham, who heads the New York-based Global Organisation of People of Indian origin (GOPIO).
Abraham, while speaking at the conference, asked the Indian government to do away with FCRA as it was creating hurdles for bonafide organisations to do philanthropy work in India. The last Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas had also made this recommendation, which has not been heeded by the government so far.
Talking to Business Standard, Abraham said: "These regulations had come into practice in the wake of alleged misuse of foreign funds by insurgent and extremists. But small amounts sent for NGOs should not bother the government."
He also said that extremists and insurgents would find other channels to fund their plans. Meanwhile, the law had only ended up making it hard for the free flow of legitimate funds in the social sector at the grassroots level.
Though Abraham was hopeful that the government would change the law, many of the 1,000 NRIs did not sound so sure. "Nobody present here would like to fund projects that the government seems to be suggesting,'' said a California-based NRI.
He said most people were only interested in "investment-based projects" and "could not trust Indian NGOs with their hard earned money.''
Summing up the dilemma of the NRIs, Sam Pitroda, Chief of the Knowledge Commission, said, "NRIs need to think in terms of pure philanthropy and sacrifice if they want to make a contribution to their motherland.''
Although the PBD was supposed to be built around the theme of social empowerment of "aam admi'' at the PBD, the atmosphere was more about seeking investments from visitors. State governments and private businesses had put up stalls to showcase how PIOs could spend their money 'safely' in India.
There were moments of strain as visitors raised questions about the Indian government's red-tapism during the discussions.
As a speaker vent his frustration of having lost money and time in pushing his proposal for setting up a private university in India and said he did not know where to ask go now; Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal shot back: "You should go to the GoM (group of ministers), which is looking into the issue of FDI in higher education."