FAQs for VOs/NGOs

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Voluntary organizations (VOs) / Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) include organizations engaged in public service, based on ethical, cultural, social, economic, political, religious, spiritual, philanthropic or scientific & technological considerations. VOs include formal as well as informal groups, such as: community-based organizations (CBOs); non-governmental development organizations (NGDOs); charitable organizations; support organizations; networks or federations of such organizations; as well as professional membership associations.

VOs / NGOs should broadly have the following characteristics:

• They are private, i.e., separate from Government
• They do not return profits generated to their owners or directors
• They are self-governing, i.e., not controlled by Government
• They are registered organizations or informal groups, with defined aims and objectives

In India a Voluntary Organization / Non Governmental Organization can be registered as Trusts, Societies, or a private limited nonprofit company, under section-25 Company of the Indian Companies Act, 1956.

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The NGO Darpan (NGO-PS) is a platform of interface between Voluntary Organization (VO) / Non Governmental Organization (NGO) and key Ministries / Departments / Government Bodies. Later it is proposed to cover all Central Ministries / Departments / Government Bodies.

The key Ministries/Departments/ Government Bodies in the first phase are M/o Culture, M/o Health & Family Welfare, M/o Social Justice & Empowerment, M/o Tribal Affairs, M/o Women & Child Development, D/o Higher Education, D/o School Education & Literacy, Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB).

This is a free facility offered by the NITI Aayog in association with National Informatics Centre to bring about greater partnership between government & voluntary sector and foster better transparency, efficiency and accountability.

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Any VO / NGO which is registered as a trust/ society/ a private limited nonprofit company, under section-25 Company of the Indian Companies Act, 1956 can Sign Up on the NGO Darpan .

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As of now no Individual (person) Registration is allowed.

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The NGO-PS helps VOs/NGOs to:

• Get details of existing VOs / NGOs across India
• Get details of the schemes of the participating Ministries/Departments/Government Bodies (mentioned at home page) offering grants to VOs / NGOs
• Apply on - line for NGO grants
• Track status of your applications for grants

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The NGO-PS does not sanction/provide grants to VOs/NGOs.

Various ministries/departments/government bodies provide and sanction grants to VOs/NGOs under different schemes listed in the NGO-PS. A list of Nodal Officers for different schemes has been displayed on the website. Any query regarding schemes can be clarified with the concerned Nodal Officer.

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• To apply for grants the first step is to create your account/sign-up and create your own User ID and Password.
• Once you login into your account, there are various links available, for viewing the department-wise schemes, providing NGO grants. Select the scheme under which you want to apply for a grant. The link to your selected scheme will provide you with all the details of the scheme - format in which you have to apply, documents you need to attach etc.
• You can get the details of the Nodal Officers for the concerned scheme, from the website. Any queries regarding schemes or about how to proceed for schemes and grants will be clarified by the respective Nodal Officers (List and Contact Details are available on the website).

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• All VOs/NGOs which are already registered as trusts/societies/private limited nonprofit companies are invited to Sign Up on the NGO Darpan (NGO-PS) Portal/Website.
• Inside the box with "New Users" Heading, a "Sign Up" button is available.
• On clicking "Sign Up" button, an online form will appear which you are required to fill.
• While filling in the form, you are required to make a UserID (can be any word or name which you can remember and use in the future for Logging in to your account) and a Password.
• Once you click on the submit button after entering all your details, you will get a message on the screen, saying "You are Successfully Registered." And you will be shown a Unique Id, which you are required to note down very carefully (or print the page or save the page) at that time . It would be something like AB/2010/0001234.
• An Email with a link for activation will be sent to your email id, which you have given in your Contact Details in the portal. You are required to click on the link 'Activate your account'.
• After clicking on the link, you would be asked to provide the Unique ID which was shown to you earlier (ie something like AB/2010/0001234).
• After thus Activating your account you can use your UserID and the Password to Login into the website and avail the facilities.

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There are certain blocked characters which are not allowed in the fields/boxes due to cyber security reasons.

You are advised to refer to the tool tips (icon named "?") given against each of the entry field (box), and at Right Hand Side top corner, "Tips to Fill in the Form", about the allowed characters in the fields. Fields entered with blocked characters are not permitted due to cyber security reasons.

For eg .(dot)s are not allowed in any of the "Name" fields under "Ngo Details" , in password field one capital letter (A, B, C...Z) and one number(0,2,3..9) is mandatory and the length should be more than 6 letters.

Other blocked characters include the following:

' (apostrophe comma)

\ (backward or reverse slash)

= (equals)

In addition, words like 'select, drop, insert' mentioned in the list of the tool tips have also been blocked. Even words with the sequence of 'select', 'drop', 'insert', 'delete' like 'selection' , 'selected', 'selects' or 'dropped' 'drop-out', 'inserted', 'deletes' etc will be rejected.

The website URL field accepts only addresses starting from "http://" so if you don't have any address to give there just leave it blank.

While filling up the "Date of Registration" field, kindly use the calendar given beside the field and you can use the arrows given there to change the months and years.

You are also advised to take care of the file size you are uploading in the Certificate field. it should be less than 2MB - it would be easier to upload a .jpg file.

• Registration Certificate should be scanned in pdf or jpg (preferably) format, and uploaded. The size of the file should be less than 2MB.
• Incase of Trust deeds, only the first page and the page with the signature on it should be scanned and uploaded. Instructions for uploading are the same as above.

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• Registration Certificate should be scanned in pdf or jpg (preferably) format, and uploaded. The size of the file should be less than 2MB.
• Incase of Trust deeds, only the first page and the page with the signature on it should be scanned and uploaded. Instructions for uploading are the same as (i) above.

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To edit your profile, you need to log into the website, into your account, using your UserID and Password. The Login box for logging in is on the first page (Home Page) of the website under the heading VO/NGO Signing In for Signed Up users.

Once you are Logged In, on the Right Hand Side, on the top there is a link Edit Profile. On clicking this, you can do the required editing of your profile.

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The Unique Id is the Id, which will be shown to you just after Signing Up. It will be something like AB/2010/0001234.

But in case you have already signed up with the portal and you have forgotten your Unique Id, you can use the link 'Forgot Your Password'. Here if you provide the secret question and secret answer correctly as you have given earlier in the online form, then an email will be sent to you with mentioning your Unique Id and a new password.

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If you don’t remember your secret question and answer, you can email us at ngo[at]india[dot]gov[dot]in , requesting for your Unique Id, from your email account (which you have given in NGO’s contact details) attaching the Copy of the Registration Certificate which you have uploaded at the website while filling in the SignUp form and also mentioning approximate time of your Signing Up with the website.

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Unique Id is just to recognize your NGO/VO and you may be asked to fill it in at the time of applying for grants. It will be used for the NGO/VO?s identification.

The SignUp ID/UserID is the ID which you have chosen for yourself and is to be used for logging in along with your Password.

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• After filling the online form, you will be shown an Unique ID (something like AB/2010/0001234). You are required to note it down somewhere carefully.
• Thereafter, you will get an email to the email id which you will provide in the NGO’s Contact Details with the link for Activation in it.
• After clicking on "Activate your Account", you will be requested to enter the Unique Id carefully, which will be shown to you just after Signing Up.
• Neither any "space" before or after it is to be given, nor can any other letter/character can be entered in that box.
• If no such email reaches you, you can mail to ngo[at]india[dot]gov[dot]in quoting the Unique ID (AB/2010/0001234).

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• If there was any spelling mistake while writing your email id, you would not have received the auto-generated email, with the Activation link in it.
• In this case, you can mail us at ngo@india.gov.in, quoting the Unique ID (something like AB/2010/0001234), that must have been shown to you, just after submitting your details with the website. On receiving that Unique ID from you, your account can be activated from here.
• After thus getting your account activated, you can log into your account and change the wrong email id.

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After activating the account, log in to your account in NGO Darpan and Submit(Upload) Annual Documents, Annual Reports, Audited Statements etc.

After logging in, on the page that opens up, one can find the links:

• Submit Annual Documents
• View Submitted Documents

to submit your documents.

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Send them to the Ministry/Department as and when instructed by the respective Scheme's Ministry's Nodal Officer.

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Use of Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox is recommended as the Web Browser.

• If Error Message is 'Your account is not yet activated. Please check you email and activate it.'- Then you need to activate your account first.
• If Error Message is 'Invalid Character Found. Invalid UserID / Password.'- The problem is either with your User Id or Password.
• If Error Message is 'Invalid Code.'- The problem is with the Verification Code, which is shown in the image and is not matching with the one you are entering in the box/field. Be careful while entering the verification code from the image. If the image is sowing a letter 'in capitals', please enter it in capitals only. Similarly if the image is sowing a letter 'in small case', please enter it in small case only. In case the image is showing a number, enter the number, without any spaces in between.

You may be using the wrong User ID and Password. Try with the correct UserID and Password. In case you have forgotten your password, you can use the 'Forgot Your Password' link. Please check the Caps Lock and Num Lock on your keyboard while entering the Login info as the password field is case sensitive.

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Send an email at ngo[at]india[dot]gov[dot]in from the email id which is written in your NGO/VO's Contact Details, requesting to reset your password.

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You can use the 'Forgot Your Password' link which you can find just below the Login area.

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If you still fail you can mail us at ngo[at]india[dot]gov[dot]in from the email id which is written in your NGO/VO?s Contact Details, requesting to reset your password.

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To edit your email id in your profile, you need to log into the website using your UserID and Password, from the Login box available in http://ngo.india.gov.in, under the table with heading as VO/NGO Signing In for Signed Up users.

Once you are Logged In, on the Right Hand Side click on Edit Profile.

Under Contact Details, remove the old email id and write your new email id.

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• In this case, you are requested to kindly send us a correspondence about this problem and mentioning both your old and new email ids in a letter through post, on your organisation's letter head and with your stamp and signature on it.
• Then a new UserID and Password will be sent to your new email id.

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The NGO/CSO already signed up or making fresh sign-up on NGO Darpan Portal, need to update /upload at least three of their officer beareres with the following designations mandatorily, however; the details of other members will be optional

• i.       Chairman / President
• ii.     Secretary (in charge of operations)
• iii.   Treasurer / Financial Trustee (or any other name for similar position)