NEW DELHI: Barely 27.7% of NGOs and associations ever registered under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, are currently active, with licences of the other 72.3% either cancelled or deemed expired.Since the home ministry started maintaining data on entities with valid FCRA registration in 2012, altogether 52,159 of them were granted licences to receive foreign funds. Of these, only 14,455 NGOs/associations currently have an ‘active’ FCRA licence; in other words, only they can receive foreign funding for the purposes listed under the 2011 rules. The registration of 22,498 NGOs has been cancelled, mostly since 2015, when over 10,000 associations lost their FCRA registration.
Licences of over 15k NGOs deemed cancelled: MHA
The licences of another 15,206 NGOs are deemed cancelled, essentially after govt tightened FCRA law to make the NGOs more accountable in terms of financial transparency, use of foreign funds for declared purposes, and administrative control and expenses.They failed to adhere to the tightened norms or voluntarily chose not to renew their registration after its five-year validity expired. State/UT-wise MHA data on associations with active, cancelled and deemed expired FCRA registration puts Tamil Nadu on top of the list.As of date, the southern state has 2,104 active NGOs, while the licences of 2,865 have been cancelled and those of 1,774 NGOs, deemed expired. Tamil Nadu is a state known to have a major presence of NGOs, some of which were actively involved in protests against projects like the Kudankulam nuclear power plant. A secret dossier then prepared by Intelligence Bureau had linked them to influential foreign non-profits and claimed that the protests were orchestrated to sabotage development projects and economic progress in India. Many of these NGOs were eventually stripped of their registration for having violated FCRA norms, including one that bars foreign-funded NGOs from engaging in activities prejudicial to national interest.The state with the second highest number of active NGOs is Maharashtra. Of the 5,440 FCRA-registered NGOs there, 1,583 are currently active, while the licences of 2,211 have been cancelled and those of 1,646, deemed expired since 2012.Data on state-wise percentage of NGOs with “cancelled” and “deemed expired” status shows Bihar at the top with 85.2% of them in these two categories, followed by UP (83.7%), Nagaland (83.3%), Tripura (80%), Maharashtra (78.9%), Manipur (78.6%) and Bengal (78.2%).Significantly, the rate of cancellation or deemed expiry in all but one of the north-eastern states is above the national average. Though figures on MHA website do not offer micro-data on the religious nature of NGOs, states like Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur have a sizable Christian community. All the three states also have many Christian NGOs, including many with foreign backing.
