One month MHA deadline to clear 1,500 FCRA pleas from NGOs

NEW DELHI: The Union home ministry has launched a special drive to clear the backlog of requests from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) seeking registration under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, with the FCRA division setting itself a one-month deadline to decide on the fate of 1,500 applications.
Sources in the home ministry said the FCRA licence requests date back to 2014 and 2015, and were submitted through the manual route, before FCRA clearances were made fully online. “The NGOs had been approaching the home ministry time and again enquiring about the status of their applications,“ said a home ministry officer.“Sometime around mid-August, the additional secretary of the foreigners division, which handles all FCRA dealings, asked his subordinates to ensure that the backlog of manual applications for fresh registration was cleared without further delay . They were asked to decide whether to grant or deny registration, and communicate the decision to the concerned NGOs,“ the officer added.

Sources said several requests had been deemed fit for rejection, and the aim is to not make the concerned applicants wait any longer for the final decision. “There is no point in keeping them hanging.Where the decision is a `no', the officers have been asked to immediately convey it to the applicant NGO,“ said an officer.

Incidentally , though the one-month deadline expires in just over a week, the recent suspension of four officers of the foreigners division -including a joint secretary , two under-secretaries and a section officer -has led to a major staff crunch. “There are few officers left and we are trying our best to clear the backlog within the deadline,“ said an officer.

The home ministry has already moved to address the manpower shortage by calling for applications from retired assistant section offi cers for engagement as consultants. The advertisement was issued on Tuesday .

Four officers of the foreigners division, including joint secretary G K Dwivedi, were suspended last week over the renewal of FCRA licence of Zakir Naik's NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) through the automatic route.

The online renewal came even as proceedings were under way to put IRF on the `prior permission' list, which requires all foreign funding to the NGO to be approved by the home ministry . Also, the Union home ministry is mulling declaring IRF an `unlawful organisation' for allegedly spreading communal hatred and carrying out forced conversions.