NEW DELHI and BHOPAL (UCAN): The Indian government restored the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act [FCRA] registration of the Missionaries of Charity clearing the decks for the charity to receive and utilise foreign funds, it was reported on January 8.
“I am delighted that the Indian government has restored our FCRA licence,” said Sunita Kumar, spokesperson of the congregation founded by St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata.
“We never expected that our registration could be cancelled but it happened,” Kumar remarked.
The change of decision comes less than a fortnight after the federal ministry for home affairs declined to renew the registration citing “adverse inputs.”
“We are happy that the restoration of our license happened without much delay,” Kumar said.
The congregation was having a difficult time carrying out its work ever since its application for renewal of the FCRA registration was “refused” on December 26 [Sunday Examiner, January 2].
In one case, it was compelled to shut the Nirmala Shishu Bhawan, an orphanage in the Kanpur Cantonment in the state of Uttar Pradesh following the expiry of its land lease.
The orphanage was established in 1968. However, India’s defense establishment now claims that it was built on its land for which the lease had expired in 2019.
It is unfortunate that an institution that served the abandoned and voiceless in the society is
Chhotebhai
shut down instead of the land lease being extended
It insisted that the nuns were trespassers and would have to pay penalty charges or face eviction.
Sister Prema, superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, felt it prudent to surrender before army authorities and peacefully handed over the home to the Defence Estates Office on January 3.
“It is unfortunate that an institution that served the abandoned and voiceless in the society is shut down instead of the land lease being extended,” said Chhotebhai, convener of the Indian Catholic Forum, which has been closely associated with the orphanage since its inception.
Over the past five decades, the Missionaries of Charity have placed over 1,500 orphans with adoptive families. The 11 remaining children, most of whom are severely handicapped, were relocated to other Shishu Bhawan homes in neighbouring Allahabad, Varanasi, Bareilly and Meerut, Chhotebhai said on January 6.
Michael S, a cancer patient and volunteer at the Varanasi facility, said, “Blocking [funding] for having a dignified life in such orphanages is cruelty that can’t be explained in words.”
He described how the centre where he works “had to even cancel plastic surgeries and other emergency procedures for several of its inmates.”
Meanwhile on January 4, Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister of Odisha [Orissa] state, directed officials to release some US$100,000 [$770,000] to the 13 Missionaries of Charity institutions in the eastern state, promising more if required.
“We are immensely indebted to him for coming to the rescue,” Kumar said, while also thanking all those who stood with the charity organisation at this time of crisis.
The Indian Catholic Forum, in a press release, expressed its “deep anguish and dismay” and questioned the Defence Estates Office for demanding a huge amount of 10 million rupees [$1.05 million] as a penalty from the nuns.
