No, this PM "Care"d little
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After the income and expenditure figures of the PM CARES Fund, which was started to provide assistance in emergency situations, appeared on the website after a gap of two year, doubts have increased about its functioning. The latest figures released for the financial year 2024-25 have hidden more than what was disclosed. For the year ended March 31, 2025, it is shown that Rs 8,452 crore was left in the fund. Only Rs 87.85 lakh was spent. A large part of the huge amount in its possession has been set aside as a fixed deposit. Details about the Rs 88 lakh spent are not available. This fund was established in 2020, in view of the hardships during the Covid period. The promise was that this fund would provide assistance not only in the event of a pandemic but also in other disaster situations that require immediate assistance. But despite the immense suffering, the fund has been kept locked. It is not because the number of victims has decreased that only one-tenth of the available funds has been spent, and 93 per cent of the amount has been kept in fixed deposits. In December 2025, the government had informed the Lok Sabha that it had provided Rs 20,000 annually to school students orphaned due to Covid.
The number of beneficiaries in the government list is 3383. If so, the expenditure should be Rs 6.76 crore. With the Rs 88 lakhs spent, each child could have received only Rs 2,596 instead of Rs 20,000. Even this is just a guess in the absence of accurate information. In the past few years, the country has been hit by floods, cyclones, landslides and other disasters, and money that could have benefited the people has been lying idle. States like Kerala, Assam, and Karnataka have complained many times that the Union government has only paid a small portion of the huge losses. The PM CARES, which sits on fixed deposits when people are suffering, does not serve its stated purpose. Initially, a large part of the PM CARES fund was deducted from the salaries of many government employees and was forcibly collected from private sector banks and corporates. Even the Companies Act was amended to include the CSR funds of companies. It was when “Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund” (PMNRF) was already in existence that a parallel and opaque fund was created. The existing relief fund is subject to CAG audit; PM CARES is not. The same people who prohibit foreign donations to NGOs are paving the way for the same for PM CARES. Considering all this, the question remains as to what the real objective was.
The lack of transparency has been there from the beginning. This fund is not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. It has been exempted from RTI queries. The reason given for this is that this fund is not under the control of the government. Meanwhile, the fund is run by the Prime Minister's Office; by officials under the Prime Minister. This is a strange method of using government mechanisms to collect funds and maintain confidentiality in its transactions. It has all the loopholes to raise funds by influencing companies illegally. Why was the independent audit system that was in place at the beginning removed? All that has been released now is the income and expenditure account. Even in that, the financial statements that should have been attached have not been made public. There is no justification for maintaining a huge fund that is completely non-transparent, does not meet the needs, and has official backing but no official accountability. It should be merged with the already existing national relief fund, and an independent and fair system should be created for its management.
