MUMBAI: In order to bring accountability and transparency in the transactions of unregistered NGOs or groups who collect donations for charitable, religious or public purposes, the state cabinet has approved stringent rules that will regulate these donations.
The state cabinet on Tuesday approved amendment of the Maharashtra Public Trust Act, 1950 to make it compulsory for unregistered organizations or even individuals who seek donations to take permission from the assistant or deputy charity commissioner, and all the donations and other transactions will be audited by the charity commissioner.
And under section 66 of the act, action has been proposed on people who collect donations without prior permission. A jail term of 3 months and or a penalty upto 1.5 times the total amount of donation that has been collected has been proposed.
“Currently there is no regulation which monitors these donations and its use. There is a lot of misappropriation of funds that goes on under the garb of donations and to make all these organizations accountable this decision has been taken,” said an official from the law and judiciary department. All the organisations other than a public trust will be covered under this new rules.
Local ganapti mandals,
Navratri mandals, societies who seek donations for various programs and other religious functions that are unregistered will now have to seek permission too.
“A permission certificate will be valid for only 6 months and an organization will have to seek fresh permissions every time their certificate lapses to continue seeking donations,” said the official.
The state government is going to make the system to seek permissions online and a time limit of seven days will set for the officials to allot permissions, failing which the application will be deemed to be cleared.
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Another section of the amendment mentions that if an organization fails to spend all the funds that they have collected through donation before their certificate lapses, the unspent amount will have to be deposited in the
Maharashtra Public Trust Administration fund, which the government will use for infrastructure strengthening of charitable institutions.
“Today only the legal framework has received approval, the next step is to frame the rules and regulations,” said another official.