Before we know FCRA 2.0, we need to understand what is FCRA.
So, It is Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, was formed in 1976. This act regulates foreign funding recieve in the NGO, associations and companies.
It was created to protect illegal foreign funding against democratic functions of India.
What is FCRA 2.0?
FCRA 2.0 is a online platform created by government to make the process of services easier like registration, renewal, filling of annual returns and compliance monitoring for all not for profit organization such as NGOs. trusts, societies and section 8 companies.
This portal reduce much of physical paper work and improve the transparancy of foreign funding in India.
But still it is not only for the online platform, it also introduced many new changes given below,
- All the process like registration, licence renewal, annual returns are all done on online reducing paperwork
- It uses adhar, pan oci (optical character recognition) documents to verify the database.
- The key members who run the organization will held accountable for all funding related activities, like directors, management, trustees and partners
- NGO who director is foreign person are not eligible to register
- NGO should specifically mention their working area, activity area like religious, educational or social activity
- They should also mention where they are giving this much of funds like states
- NGO should utilize 75 percent of funds before recieving more funds
- To perform any changes organizations need to inform the government as they need to update on this platform
- NGO needs to be regularly renew themselves or else gets their grant expired
- This all things make the NGO transparent and trustworthy avoiding foreign funding to utilize for undemocratic functions.