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Greenpeace India has only enough funds to cover one more month’s salary for its employees, following which it would have to shutter operations, a top official said in a statement Tuesday.
Greenpeace India’s executive director Samir Aich on Tuesday told staff members to start preparing for an imminent shutdown as the non-profit’s domestic accounts have been blocked by the government over alleged violations of India’s foreign exchange laws.
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We have one month left to save Greenpeace India from complete shutdown, and to fight MHA’s indefensible decision to block our domestic accounts,” Aich told colleagues, according to a statement from Greenpeace India.
The non-profit has been operating in India for the past 14 years and currently employs about 350 people.
A week back, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) had cancelled the registration of around 9,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) under the Foreign Contribution Registration Act (FCRA), 2010. After the cancellation, none of these NGOs were able to seek foreign donations or access their bank accounts to utilise the unutilised foreign contributions.
The MHA order (detailed order) said that the cancelled NGOs did not submit to the ministry details of amount of foreign contribution they received, the source from which the money came, and for what purposes the money was utilised for the financial years 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12.
