Several prominent academic institutions have been prohibited by the Narendra Modi government from receiving funds from abroad. The Union Home Ministry has barred institutions like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), University of Delhi (DU), IIT-Delhi and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) as they have reportedly not filed their annual returns for the past 5 years.
According to Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010 (FCRA), no organisation or institution can accept funds from foreign countries unless it is registered under the FCRA. They are required to submit their annual income and expenditure statement to the government every year. For instance, an educational institution cannot accept donations from its alumni based abroad unless it has a FCRA registration number.
A home ministry official told The Indian Express that these universities had not filed their returns from 2010-11 to 2014-15 in spite of being served repeated notices.
“I’m not aware of this. But IIT-Delhi has nothing to hide. I’m sure we would have filed our returns. This seems like a procedural issue and we will sort this out with the government,” IIT Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao told the website.
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The other institutions that have been barred by the Centre from receiving donations from overseas are Supreme Court Bar Association, Indian Council of Medical Research, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Panjab University, Gargi College (Delhi), Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, Armed Forces Flag Day Fund and others.
“We have filed our returns. In fact, we got a reminder about filing returns recently and we informed the government that we have already complied. I’m not sure why this has happened,” Promila Kumar, acting principal of Gargi College told the website.
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Source: The Indian Express
