Is grant received from UNWOMEN exempted under FCRA?

5 Responses to Is grant received from UNWOMEN exempted under FCRA?

1. Subhash Mittal says:

   October 30, 2014 at 10:56 am

   After reading comment of Bharat Gupta below, I also went to UN Women website and observed that the organisation is very much a UN entity. The language on the web-site is indicative that it is special organisation created by UN. FAQ on the website further inform that its head Ms Michelle Bachelet is Under-Secretary-General UN, and was appointed by Secretary General, Mr Ban ki Moon and that she will be member of all the senior UN decision-making bodies and reporting directly to the Secretary General. Main part of the funds of UN Women would come directly from the UN Budget.

   In view of the above, though UN Women name does not directly appear in the list of 109 entities exempted from FCRA, there are good chances that it may have actually been exempted from FCRA by a notification, which does not appear in the FCRA exempted list. However if not issued and if UN Women writes to FCRA Dept., it is quite likely to be included in the list of exempted bodies.
2. Subhash Mittal says:

   October 22, 2014 at 7:18 am

   Thanks Soma, you are absolutely right that UN Women is not included in the list 109 FCRA exempt entities (under S. 50).

   @Ramakrishnan: Status of FCRA is decided after taking a call if the donor is a ‘foreign source’ (as defined under S. 2 (j)) Under this definition of foreign source sub-clause (ii) covers ‘any international agency, not being the United Nations or any of its specialised agencies……..as the Central Government may by notification specify in this behalf’.

   Since the notification does not cover UN Women, it would be treated as FCRA organisation. However I agree that there is no harm in talking to UN Women and finding out exact status. It is possible that notification is issued but not appearing on website.
3. Ramakrishnan says:

   October 21, 2014 at 5:49 am

   If the grant is received in Indian Rupees from the Indian office of UN Women, I believe it is not to be treated as a foreign grant in the first place, and should be credited to your local grant account.
   If the grant is received from a UN Women external (foreign) office, you should seek clarification from the relevant UN Women office regarding the origin of the funds, because they may be from one of the exempt organizations. If the origin is not from one of the exempt organizations, you may ave to seek FCRA permission.
   This is not a definitive opinion.
4. Bhamidipati Soma Sastry says:

   October 20, 2014 at 11:45 am

   Dear Satya,

   I have seen the list of UN agencies exempt under FCRA but did not find UNWOMEN.

   Thanks and regards,

   B V Soma Sastry
   • Bharat Gupta says:

     October 24, 2014 at 10:02 am

     Dear Soma and other members,

     Just to add an input from my side. I also went through the FCRA site and saw that UNWomen is not included in their list.
     However, if we log on to the UNWomen site http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/about-us/faqs-2/, it says that UNWomen is a UN body formed after merger of four UN related bodies. At least two of these, INSTRAW and UNIFEM, appear on the MHA site. So this brings in some confusion!

     Hence, in my opinion, there are possibilities of non-applicability of FCRA. But, maybe it is a good idea if the FCRA applicability is crosschecked by the NGO both from the UN office as well as MHA.

     Best

     Bharat

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