A couple of days ago, the Central government released a list of around 1,800 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across India that have been banned for allegedly violating norms of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
The union ministry of home affairs said these NGOs had not uploaded the mandatory annual returns for 2017-18 on FCRA portal even after the extended date of March 31, 2019. Non-filing of annual returns is a violation of Section 18 of the Act.
A final notice was issued on June 22 to the defaulters, giving them an opportunity to file within 15 days. However, they failed to submit the returns.
Foreign contributions to India are regulated through the FCRA, 2010. As many as 90 NGOs in Telangana, 168 in Andhra Pradesh, 94 in Karnataka, 53 in Kerala, 217 in Tamil Nadu and eight in Pondicherry have been banned by the Union government for allegedly not complying with foreign funding laws.
The list includes some prominent organisations like National Institute of Virology (Maharashtra), National Geophysical Research Institute (Telangana) and Rabindranath Tagore Medical College, Hospital and Research. All these details were published by various newspapers and news portals.
So far so good. But somewhere in the list of such erring NGOs from Andhra Pradesh, there is a name called Y S Vijayamma Charitable Trust.
And within no time, the pro-Telugu Desam Party websites picked up the name and started spreading the theory that the trust belonged to Vijayamma, mother of YSR Congress party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
They have accused Vijayamma of collecting foreign funds for her trust and not submitting proper returns for the money. Hence, it has been banned.
Sources close to the CM’s family, however, denied the reports that the trust belonged Vijayamma.
“It is purely a malicious propaganda to throw mud on the chief minister and his family. Enquiries revealed that some unknown person started this Y S Vijayamma Charitable Trust at Tanuku and it had nothing to do with YSR family,” they clarified.
The sources close to CM’s family alleged that it was a deliberate attempt by the pro-TDP social media to spread false information against Jagan without even verifying the facts.
“We shall take appropriate legal action against these people indulging in spreading of false information,” they said.
