PM Cares Fund: sane questions to worry about!

For those who will rather listen

The concept of PM Cares Fund was so appealing I immediately opened Google pay and donated more than a hundred rupees – the best of what an unemployed engineering student could donate.

In a pandemic-affected world, the ability to directly contribute to the economic needs of the country was more satisfying than I had expected.

What so worth saying about the ‘holy fund’ is, according to its official site, 3100 crore rupees have been put into work.

Wow!

Isn’t it so amazing?

Except, if we search through all the publicly announced sources from govt. we come to know PM CARES FUND has received more than 9677 crore rupees. (And it is news from, May 2020.)

Nobody can tell what happens with that money, with no promise of transparency whatsoever.

Why does it not mandatory for the trust to show all its investments, since it includes everyone’s money?

When various Transparency activists tried to get information on the same by using Right to information, PM CARES fund denied sharing the info. stating that it’s not a “public authority”, but only a “Public Charitable Trust”.

FYI, Every organization needs to be a public authority to be not exempted from RTI.

So that was a legal argument, until when we reflect on who manages it, that is, it is managed by Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), which is a public authority. That makes it an obligation for trust to share the information under RTI.

Do any official from government or trustee from trust cares to explain?

I’ll leave the guessing to you.

The second, big scammy noise came when it receives donations from foreign organizations, and there are no audits for them under the FCRA act {The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act}.

According to The Quint: “Being a public charitable trust, that has received foreign funds, PM CARES should also come under the FCRA Act. But it has been exempted by the Finance Ministry. Why? No one knows because the Finance Ministry has simply refused to share such information under RTI.”

Talking of Foreign donations, one more thing I must tell you, these donations were being made after publicizing of them by Indian Embassy Offices – which are again government entities.

The question is, why exactly PM CARES Fund is so special?

It is maintained and promoted by the government. Also exempted from taxes, FCRA, and RTI.

If it is run by the government, promoted by the government, who are public authorities, how it is exempted from RTI?

Even if it is a private trust, then why it has received donations from cooperations as CSR in May 2020?

For those who don’t know what CSR is, its full form is ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’, and every big corporates have to either pay as a donation or take initiatives such as establishing institutions or organizations in the interest of the good of society.

So the fund does not get to receive these CSRs if it’s not government authority and public authority, still, it did, and that’s a shame. View here in detail how this “private fund” managed to do it with the help of, well, the government itself.

Well, I felt it’s important to share, since chances are you or someone you knew have had made donations as well. Share with them, and tell them to speak up on social media or in their social circle that there is no transparency of PM CARES FUND, and ask yourself, how the system and government can be trusted?

See you in our next battle!