Data on NGOs' foreign funding removed from FCRA portal

Certain data related to hundreds of NGOs, which were registered with the government, have been removed from the website of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) operated by the Union home ministry, officials said.

A home ministry spokesperson refused to disclose the reason behind the removal of the data of hundreds of government-registered NGOs but officials said the step has been taken as the public display of the information was not required.

The FCRA website is maintained by the foreigners division of the home ministry and it earlier had detailed data on NGOs granted licences, those who were granted prior permission for receiving foreign funding and those NGOs whose licences were cancelled.

Those NGOs whose licences are deemed to have expired and the annual returns of NGOs are also available in the website, officials said.

However, now the website has overall data on these indices. The list identifying the NGOs in separate categories has been removed and the annual returns of NGOs also cannot be accessed.

The overall data on the number of NGOs whose licences were revoked and the number of NGOs which have filed annual returns is available, the officials said.

The quarterly accounts of foreign contributions received by the NGOs has also been removed. This is in line with the changes in FCRA rules notified by the home ministry recently.

On July 1, the ministry notified a series of changes in the FCRA rules in "an effort to lessen the compliance burden on NGOs". These included changes in Rule 13 which deals with "declaration of receipt of foreign contribution".

The deleted clause stated: "A person receiving foreign contribution in a quarter of the financial year shall place details of foreign contribution received on its official website or on a website as specified by the central government within 15 days following the last day of the quarter in which it has been received clearly indicating details of donors, amount received and date of receipt."