On 31st, 2021 Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) had lapsed under the NGO’s registration of 5933. For renewal, the due date was missed out and so the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) had rejected the application. Even IMA (Oxfam India Trust and Indian Medical Association had been included as an organization. Sources had noticed that FCRA registration of 5789 NGOs lapsed due to their failure to apply for renewal before the due date of December 31st. The accounts of FCRA have been violated for their operations as per MHA sources.
Notices were sent to the NGO’s repeatedly with regards to the renewal as reminders but there was no response. The notice was sent by MHA officials. There are 12989 NGOs which had applied for renewal of the registrations between September 30th, 2020 and 31st December 31st, 2021. This news was as per MHA sources. But MHA had rejected the applications of over 170 NGOs for various irregularities. But the applications of other NGOs are being under-processed. Oxfam India & the IMA was one among the rejection for renewal applications. They had confirmed that the renewal applications have been rejected by MHA the source was given by Oxfam India. Honorary general secretary of IMA, Dr. Jayesh Lele had said that “IMA had already applied for the renewal of its FCRA registration & they have not received any further communication on what has happened about the application”. It remains on MHA’s list of associations whose FCRA registration has been lapsed. Due to the different reasons the pandemic & amendments had brought the FCRA by the government in 2020. With the foreign division of MHA being short–staffed, the ministry has not been able to process the renewal applications of NGOs at a satisfactory pace. It extended the validity of NGOs whose FCRA registration expired after September 9th, 2020 until May 31st, 2021. But later it was extended to September 30th, 2021, further extended to 31st December 2021. These extensions are for NGOs those who have applied for renewal before their registrations are due for expiry. But their applications are deemed to lapse as per official news.
