Image courtesy: arre.co.in
The Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) has been in existence since 1948. This fund has reportedly an un-spent balance of Rs. 3,800 crores. The accounts of the fund are transparent; audited by the CAG; and auto-generated receipts are given to the donors. Given this, many questions are being raised on why a new fund has been
created. This new fund has as trustees, the Prime Minister and three other ministers without any opposition party or civil society leaders as members. The contribution page is hosted in the Prime Minister’s official web page. The Prime Minister has openly appealed through social media for donations.
In this context, the CPI(M) considers the setting up of a separate fund to meet the COVID-19 pandemic called the “PM Cares” as unnecessary .
Substantial donations have poured in from the corporate world, celebrities, public sector undertakings etc. There are reports that a day’s salary is being deducted from government employees and professionals, the armed and para-military forces as contribution towards this fund. Further, corporates will be considered as fulfilling their CSR obligations by merely contributing to this fund.
There is no mention of maintenance of accounts, their audit or on the answerability of the decisions taken by these four trustees. In short, there is no transparency and accountability.
After the Pulwama terrorist attack, a similar fund was set up called the “Bharat ke Veer”, to provide assistance to the victims of this tragedy. However, so far, no transparency or accountability on how this fund was utilized is visible. In this background, the “PM Cares” raises many disturbing questions.
Further, Health is on the concurrent list and state governments have a major role in this area. Already the state governments are under severe pressure with the shrinkage of their resources including the GST payment defaults. Under these circumstances, given the federal principles of our Constitution, the amounts collected by this new fund
should be transferred to the PMNRF and from there to the state governments for meeting the challenges of the pandemic and saving
people’s lives.
The motive for setting up this new fund remains suspect. In any case it should have been named “India Cares” and not “PM Cares”.