PM CARES Fund
The Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) was created on 27 March 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Although it is named for the Prime Minister of India, and uses the State Emblem of India, it is a private fund, used at the discretion of the Prime Minister and the Fund's trustees, and does not form a part of the Government of India's accounts.[1] The Fund was established for the purpose of redressing the COVID-19 pandemic in India, in 2020.[2][3][4] While complete documentation for the Fund's establishment has not been made public, the Government of India has stated that the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, is the chairman of the fund, and that trustees include the Minister of Defence, Rajnath Singh; the Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah, the Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, and several corporate leaders and industrialists, including Ratan Tata, and Sudha Murty.[5]
Formation
27 March 2020
- Ratan Tata (Trustee) & (Chairman Emeritus of Tata Group)
- Amit Shah (Minister of Home Affairs),
- Nirmala Sitharaman (Minister of Finance),
- Rajnath Singh (Minister of Defence),
The total amount of funds donated and the names of donors have not been publicly disclosed, and the fund is privately audited. It is not subject to audits by India's Comptroller and Auditor General,[6] and the Government of India has denied access to documentation involving the fund under India's transparency law, the Right to Information Act, arguing that it is not a government fund and consequently not liable to disclose either earnings or spendings.[7][8][9][10] The Fund has collected financing through public donations from Indian citizens as well as foreign groups such as Russia's State-owned defence exports company Rosoboronexport.[11] It has also collected funding by substantial transfers of amounts allocated for corporate social responsibility in government-owned public sector corporations, universities, and banks as well as deductions from salaries of government employees.[12][13][14][15] Consequently, the PM CARES Fund has faced criticism for the lack of transparency and accountability in relation to its establishment, functioning, and accounts.[16][17] Substantial litigation regarding this is ongoing.[18][8]
While total accounts for the Fund have not been made public, and cannot be subject to transparency and disclosure laws, partial accounts released by the Fund as well as statements by government officials indicate that part of their corpus has been spent on procuring vaccines against COVID-19, as well as to purchase ventilators following large scale shortage of such facilities, as well as oxygen, during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.[19] While funds have been promised for vaccine development in 2020, these have not been allotted as of 2022, and two-thirds of the corpus remains unspent.[19] Additionally, ventilators purchased by the funds have been criticised over quality concerns, with several hospitals returning them as they were not usable for patients and government panels flagging quality issues.[20][21][22] Additionally, concerns have been raised about the processing of tendering, as several manufacturers were found to have no have had no experience in manufacturing ventilators before this.[23][24]
Income and expenditure[edit]
Corpus[edit]
The total amount currently donated to the PM CARES fund has not been disclosed publicly. In September 2020, a statement was uploaded to the PM CARES website indicating that the total amount donated to the fund between 27 March 2020, when the fund was established, and 31 March 2020, was ₹30.76 billion. The statement does not disclose the names and identities of the donors. The statement indicates the receipts (in crore rupees) as:[28][52][53][54]
Accountability and transparency[edit]
Non-disclosure of information[edit]
On 5 June 2020, the Prime Minister's Office stated that the PM CARES fund did not qualify as a public authority for the purposes of the Right to Information Act 2005, and accordingly refused to disclose a copy of the trust deed that established the fund, any government circulars or documents related to the fund, or the exemption certificates granted to it under the Income Tax Act 1961.[102] This order was challenged by appeal, and the Appellate Authority under the Right to Information Act 2005, in the Prime Minister's office again refused to disclose the information.[7] A challenge against these orders is currently pending in the High Court of Delhi.[103] On 17 August 2020, a second request for information on the PM-CARES Fund under the Right to Information Act 2005 was denied.[104] In October 2020, an application under the Right to Information Act filed with the National Informatics Center indicated that the PM CARES Fund had been allotted a government domain name, which can only be granted to government entities; however, they refused to disclose further information about the Fund, stating that it isn't available with them.[105][106] In January 2021, a group of 100 retired Indian civil servants including A.S. Dulat (former head of the Research and Analysis Wing), K. Sujatha Rao (former Secretary, Family Health) and S. C. Behar, wrote to Prime Minister Modi, flagging concerns about the refusal to disclose information about the Fund under the Right to Information Act 2005.[107]
In August 2020, petitions filed under the Right to Information Act 2005 to the Ministry of Labour concerning the allocation of funds for migrant laborers were denied, and the Ministry stated that the Fund was not a public authority and accordingly was not obliged to respond to the petition. A similar petition filed with the Chief Labour Commissioner received a response indicating that no funds had been earmarked for migrant labor as yet.[108]
Exemption from audits[edit]
In April 2020, the Prime Minister's Office stated that PM CARES would not be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, since the PM CARES fund consisted of private donations and not public funds. Officials working with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India stated that they were not allowed to audit the fund, since it was "based on donations of individuals and organisations". The Prime Minister's National Relief Fund, although not officially audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General, has complied with audits questioning its spending, such as in the case of the 2013 Uttarakhand floods.[47]
Private audits and issuance of receipts[edit]
In response to criticism concerning the lack of audits, accountability and transparency, the Government of India stated on 30 July 2020 that "independent auditors who will be appointed by the trustees" would audit the fund, and that such auditors would be appointed by the trustees of the Fund.[36] The Government of India also agreed to start issuing receipts for donations.[36]
In June 2020, a private firm of chartered accountants, SARC and Associates was reported to have been appointed as auditors for the PM CARES Fund for a period of three years.[26] SARC and Associates has previously audited the PMNRF in 2019, replacing another private firm as its auditor.[109] Sunil Kumar Gupta, the head of SARC and Associates, has acted as an advisor to several government entities in the past.[110] The selection and appointment process for the private auditor has not been made public.[110] Gupta has previously written a book about the government's 'Make in India' initiative, and has appeared on news channels Zee News and the state-owned Doordarshan TV to promote government programs.[111]
Foreign donations[edit]
The PM CARES Fund is exempt from scrutiny and monitoring of all foreign donations, as the provisions of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act have been exempted as far as the Fund is concerned. In April 2020, the Home Ministry of India declined to comment on a pledge of financial support to PM CARES from Russian state-owned defence company, Rosoboronexport, in response to concerns about the departure from India's prior policy of only accepting foreign donations from non-resident Indians, persons of Indian origin, and international organisations.[11] In June 2020, Opposition leaders criticised the Government of India for accepting donations to the PM CARES Fund from Chinese-owned companies, in light of the 2020 China-India skirmishes and the Government of India's bans on Chinese products, including mobile applications.[112] Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh stated that Chinese donations accepted to the PM CARES Fund ought to be returned.[113]
Fraudulent accounts[edit]
Immediately after the fund was created, multiple fake accounts were found in circulation. While the original UPI accounts were pmcares@sbi and pmcares@iob, Delhi Police booked an individual for creating a UPI account removing the 's' called pmcare@sbi, intended to scam people.[114] The Press Bureau of India issued a clarification on twitter, confirming its donation information to ensure that funds were not donated to fraudulent accounts.[115]
On 26 April 2020, police in Navi Mumbai registered a criminal case after a person provided funds via the PhonePe following a call soliciting donations to the PM CARES Fund. The call was alleged to be fraudulent.[116]
Litigation concerning the PM CARES Fund[edit]
Transparency and accountability[edit]
In August 2020, the Supreme Court of India rejected a petition filed by the Center for Public Interest Litigation, a non-profit organisation, which sought the transfer of funds from PM CARES to the National Disaster Response Fund, and refused to pass orders directing that the fund should be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The Supreme Court held that the Government of India was free to make transfers between the two funds at its discretion. The Supreme Court also rejected a related plea calling on the Court to direct the Government of India to create a new national disaster relief plan to address the COVID-19 pandemic in India, finding the existing disaster relief plans to be sufficient.[117][118] A review petition against this order is currently pending, as of October 2020.[119]
The Supreme Court of India had previously dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Manohar Lal Sharma for questioning the legality of the constitution of PM CARES Fund for COVID-19, describing the petition as 'misconceived', in April 2020.[120]
A number of petitions concerning the lack of transparency and accountability of the PM CARES Fund are pending in High Courts in India. On 14 May 2020, the Bombay High Court sought a response from the Government of India in response to a petition seeking a declaration of the amount of funds received by the PM CARES Fund, and calling on the government to publish details of funds received and spent on the PM CARES website.[121] On 3 June 2020, the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court issued notice to the Government of India in a petition seeking details of the amounts collected so far in the Fund to fight COVID-19 pandemic and it's audit processes,[122] but later dismissed this petition.[123] On 4 June 2020, the Delhi High Court heard a public interest petition filed, seeking to bring transparency to the PM CARES Fund by making the Right to Information Act 2005 applicable to it.[18] On 10 June 2020, the Delhi High Court heard a petition filed by Samyak Gangwal, who challenged an order of the Prime Minister's Office refusing to disclose information about the establishment and governance of the Fund under the Right to Information Act 2005. The case is ongoing.[103]
On 22 May 2020, Praveen Kumar, a lawyer in Bengaluru, filed a criminal complaint against Sonia Gandhi and other opposition leaders following tweets by them criticising the Fund on grounds of transparency and accountability. The criminal complaint was registered under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including Section 153 (relating to provocations with the intent to cause riots) and Section 505(1)(b) (relating to the intent to cause fear or alarm in the public).[124]
Challenges to mandatory donations[edit]
On 17 June 2020, the Delhi High Court dismissed an appeal from a Delhi University professor who challenged a mandatory deduction from his salary to the PM CARES Fund, referring to the petitioner as "stone-hearted". The petitioner had argued that the university ought to have taken the consent of its employees before making the deduction.[125]
In October 2020, the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity modified one of its own orders requiring the payment of a fine to the PM CARES Fund, and allowed the fine to be paid to the National Disaster Response Fund instead. The petitioners in this case argued that as the Government of India itself had declared that the PM CARES Fund was not a government fund for the purpose of transparency, and had refused to allow it to be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), they could not be compelled to donate to it. The Tribunal accepted this argument.[126]
In popular culture[edit]
In September 2020, an anonymous user on the social news aggregation website, Reddit, purchased a domain name "pmcares.fund" and created a satirical browser game. The page displays browser game that involves a figure representing Prime Minister Narendra Modi overcoming several obstacles including the judiciary, media, and economy, and also an error message stating that details of the PM CARES Fund are unavailable because of the lack of government disclosures. The website gained wide attention on several social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook.[127][128][129]