ALVA campaigns for a conducive legal and fiscal environment for the Indian voluntary sector in the national and state levels. Certain provisions of laws governing voluntary organizations like the Societies Registration Act of 1860, the Indian Trusts Act (1882), the Charitable and Religious Trust Act (1920), Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act (1950), Foreign Contribution Regulation Act of 1976 (FCRA) and by similar legislations of the states have become obsolete or redundant. These laws impede rather than enable the work of voluntary organizations. There is a greater need for the promotion of voluntarism than for its regulation. ALVA, in consultation with other voluntary organisations, calls for the assessment and amendment of these laws in order to secure policies that enlarge rather than restrict the space for voluntary action in India. |
It is pushing for the adoption of a National Policy for the Voluntary Sector. This alternative policy seeks to simplify voluntary organizations access to funds and the process of voluntary organization registration, and to make voluntary organizations more involved in designing, managing and monitoring development programmes
Being an independent voice of the sector, AVAF raises these concerns at different levels - from the local to the international.