WASHINGTON, D.C.After Compassion International, a US-based Christian charity organization, threatened to wind up its operations in India, the Ministry of Home Affairs said it will reconsider the decision of the government to ban Compassion for doing fund transactions with regional NGOs in India. Compassion International had earlier this week approached the Congressional members of the House of Foreign Affairs Committee with...
a request to pressurize India to back away from its earlier decision or it will be forced to call off India operations. A senior Home Ministry official was quoted by India Today saying: “We are ready to reconsider the case of Compassion International, the US donor, which was put under ‘prior permission category’ for alleged violation of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).” The government of India had put Compassion International under its prior permission category, which makes the charity organization bound to get prior permissions from the authorities before doing any fund transfers to other NGOs based in India. Currently, Compassion International transfer of funds to 580 partner organizations in India. CI official Stephen Oakley while making the representation before the Congressional Committee said that the organization is willing to work with the Indian government to address concerns regarding conversions.Compassion started its India operations in 1968 and for the last 48 years, the NGO has been working among children to break the cycle of poverty. The US-based NGO has made fund transfers worth $50 million per year in humanitarian aid to India, funding nearly 145,000 sponsored children in some of Indian’s most impoverished and remote regions. It has over a few hundreds of staffs and more than 580 child development centers in the country.