Representatives of over 700 civil society organisations from across the country today demanded that government should stop "harassing" the NGOs working on people's issues by using FCRA and other regulatory mechanisms as tools.
They demanded that the regulatory framework for NGOs should be drawn along the lines of FEMA and should be a facilitating one rather than punitive. They also sought that the Home Affairs Ministry should not be the nodal authority for NGOs and asked for repeal of the FCRA.
"Government should stop arbitrary action against NGOs using FCRA as a tool and other regulatory tools like Income Tax to harass organisations.
"Also, the regulatory framework for NGOs needs to be looked at and it should be a facilitating framework rather than punitive along the lines the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) is. The FCRA is unconstitutional because it contravenes the freedom of right of expression and association. The FCRA must be repealed," said Biraj Patnaik, adviser to the Supreme Court commissioners on the right to food.
Asserting that the Ministry of Home Affairs should not be the nodal authority for NGOs, he said, "Because they do not understand development work. We demand setting up a separate ministry or give it to an aligned ministry which understands development like the Social Justice and Development or the Ministry of Rural Development."
Mathew Cherian, representing the Voluntary Action Network of India, termed the recent developments, in particular the use of FCRA to "target" organisations working on rights of marginal populations, as a "worrisome trend".
"Funding has dropped from Rs 13,500 crore to Rs 7500 crore. Can Rs 7500 crore destabilise a government?" he asked.
Venkatesh Nayak, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, said, "With the law getting increasingly geared towards restricting the capability of NGOs to receive foreign funds rather than facilitating them to work for the most marginalised, which is high on the agenda of the present government, it is clearly a case of no-win for all concerned."
Nayak said while the government is "hounding" NGOs on technical grounds by taking away their eligibility to receive foreign funding, political parties have approved an amendment permitting them to receive funding from foreign companies through their Indian subsidiaries with retrospective effect.
Speaking on behalf of the recently created CSO Support Cell, Patnaik said complaints are pouring in from every part of the country and there is an urgent need for a structured dialogue between the state and the CSOs on a wide range of issues pertaining to the framework of regulatory laws currently operational.
