For those NGOs waiting to seek more clarification on applying/renewing their FCRA (Foreign Contributions Registration Act) Registration Certificate, here is some good news. On 14 December 2015, the Ministry of Home Affairs under the Government of India launched a revamped version of its FCRA website to ensure easy and seamless process for NGOs seeking to access foreign grants.
With this new FCRA services, NGOs can now submit their FCRA application online and make an online payment. What more? You can now also track your submitted application to learn about its progress. The Home Ministry promises that it will issue digitally-signed Registration Certificates and Prior Permission sanctions.
This entire initiative removes the cumbersome process for NGOs which were earlier required to send manual payments and waiting endlessly to know about the status of their applications.
The important highlights of this new initiative are:
- The entire process of applying for registration/renewal and even prior permission has been made online which is not only easy to apply but also enables you to track the status of your application
- As required documents can now be scanned and uploaded directly to the FCRA website, NGOs no longer have to make copies and post them to the Ministry
- The FCRA fee can now be paid online which further reduces the manual process of sending demand drafts
- The FCRA certificate/prior permission will be issued online using a digitally signed document which will also help NGOs to quickly get through the registration process
- FCRA-registered NGOs have to submit details of the foreign contributions once in 3 months
- List of purposes, the number of documents and the social media details of donors and NGOs have also been reduced.
You can visit the new FCRA website at https://fcraonline.nic.in
