The PM CARES fund, set up in March 27 this year by the Modi Government for coronavirus pandemic, received Rs 3,076 crore till March 31, says an audit report published on the PM CARES website. The Congress has asked the Government to make public the names of donors “like any NGO or trust is obliged to do.”
The audit report said that declaration had been made on the total donations received from India and abroad till March 31. However, the donations received after March is not known yet.
According to the audit report made public on the PM Cares site, Rs 30,76,62,58,096 was the final balance of the bank account linked to the PM’s Citizens Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation (PM CARES) fund.
Of the total amount, Rs 3,075.85 crore is known to have come from domestic contribution while Rs 39.67 lakh from foreign contribution. The details of the donors have not been made public by the Government yet. The audit statement also says PM CARES has also received an interest of around Rs 35 lakh.
The fund was set up with an initial corpus of Rs 2, 25,000 with the announcement of the Prime Minister on March 27 and was soon flooded with donations from common men, celebrities, politicians, Members of Parliament, Government officials and private donors across the country and abroad.
The PM CARES fund is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Other ex-officio members of the trust are Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram took to Twitter to question why the “names of these generous donors not been revealed.”
“But the names of these generous donors will not be revealed. Why?”, he asked
“Every other NGO or Trust is obliged to reveal the names of donors contributing more than a threshold amount. Why is the PM CARES FUND exempt from this obligation?
“The donee is known. The trustees of the donee are known. Why are the trustees afraid to reveal the names of the donors?,” Chidambaram sought to know identities of donors in a series of tweets.
Opposition parties have questioned the need to create the reserve when Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund already existed.
Recently the Modi-Government got shot in its arm when the Supreme Court said the funds from the PM-CARES Fund need not be transferred to the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) and individuals can voluntarily contribute to the NDRF. The apex court had dismissed a petition seeking transfer of all funds from PM CARES Fund to NDRF.
The Congress said the Supreme Court’s judgement on the PM-CARES Fund was a “body blow to transparency and accountability” of the Government to the people and wondered why the ruling party was against openness.
AICC general secretary K C Venugopal had alleged that HUAWEI had given Rs 7 crore, the company owning TikTok had facilitated a donation of Rs 30 crore, Paytm, having a 38% Chinese ownership, had given Rs 100 crore, XIAOMI had committed Rs 15 crore and OPPO donated Rs 1 crore to the PM CARES fund.