PM-CARES: 64% of Funds Collected Remained Unused as of March 2021

New Delhi: Of the Rs 10,990 crore collected by the Union government under the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM-CARES) Fund since its inception in March 27, 2020, Rs 7,014 crore (64%) remained unutilised as of March 31, 2021, NDTV reported on Tuesday, February 8.

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, PM-CARES was set up, according to its official government website, as a “public charitable trust” with the “primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation… to provide relief to the affected”.

However, despite receiving Rs 3,077 crore within the first five days of its formation and receiving Rs 7,679 worth of donations in its first year (in addition to the Rs 235 crore coming from interest accrued), the government spent only Rs 3,976 from the fund in the same time-frame, according to the data mentioned in the NDTV report.

The fund received Rs 494.91 as foreign contributions and Rs 7,183 crore from ‘voluntary contributions’ in the same year.

Of the outlay, Rs 1,392 was reportedly spent on buying 6.6 crore vaccine doses and Rs 1,311 crore was spent on buying 50,000 Indian-made ventilators.

However, several problems were reported vis-a-vis these ventilators. As reported by The Wire in November last year, 165 such ventilators were delivered to Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital in Srinagar – which the hospital never asked for – and all of these units were found to be dysfunctional by hospital staff. 

Also read: Doctor Who Complained About Faulty PM-CARES Ventilators Suspended for 'Medical Negligence'

This also raised questions about the contract awarded for the manufacture of 10,000 of these ventilators, which was awarded to a company that had never made ventilators before, and also of the fact that the government didn’t lay down any specifications/standards for the manufacturer to meet.

Moreover, as detailed in the NDTV report, there were reports from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh of many ventilators being left unused since there were not enough trained personnel to operate them.

Of the other expenditures detailed in the report was Rs 1,000 crore set aside to aid the country’s migrant population, who suffered inordinate hardships when Prime Minister Modi first announced a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the disease.

Rs 201.58 was reportedly spent to set up 162 oxygen generation plants following the deadly second wave of the pandemic and the consequent oxygen shortage in the country.

Moreover, Rs 20.41 crore was spent to upgrade government-run labs to test and release vaccines; Rs 50 crore was spent to set up two COVID hospitals in Bihar as well as 16 RT-PCR testing labs across the country and Rs 1.01 lakh was spent on bank charges.

The figures mentioned above were detailed in the fund’s latest audit statement prepared by SARC and Associates, a Delhi-based accounting firm. However, they detail the receipts and expenditures only until March 31, 2021, once again raising the question of transparency with regards to PM-CARES.

Also read: Why PM-CARES Is a 'Government Fund' and Well Within RTI Purview

The Union government received several RTI inquiries with respect to PM-CARES but refused to respond to them on the grounds that the fund was not a “public authority”; a contention it made formally before the Delhi high court. 

However, as The Wire had earlier reported, several characteristics of the fund show that it is controlled by the Union government, such as the fact that it is operated and controlled by ministers in Modi’s cabinet; it used government machinery to purchase resources, such as ventilators; it is outside of FCRA purview; it has a ‘.gov.in’ domain, among many more such factors.

(With PTI inputs)

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