{"id":119896,"date":"2026-08-19T13:43:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=119896"},"modified":"2026-08-19T13:43:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:13:47","slug":"pm-cares-fund-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/pm-cares-fund-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"PM-CARES Fund Issues, Transparency, Utilisation, Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Why in the News?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> : The audited financial statements of the <strong>Prime Minister\u2019s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM-CARES) Fund<\/strong> for 2023-24 and 2024-25 have been released after a prolonged delay, highlighting <strong>concerns over the Fund\u2019s utilisation, declining donations and transparency.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About PM-CARES Fund<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>PM-CARES (Prime Minister\u2019s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations) Fund<\/strong> was established on <strong>27 March 2020<\/strong> as a <strong>public charitable trust<\/strong> to provide assistance during emergencies and distress, particularly in the context of the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/covid-19\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>COVID-19<\/strong><\/a> pandemic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Legal status<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: It is constituted as a <em><strong>public charitable trust<\/strong><\/em>, rather than as a fund forming part of the Government of India\u2019s budgetary accounts.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Chairperson<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The <em><strong>Prime Minister is the ex-officio Chairperson of the Fund<\/strong><\/em>, with the Ministers of Defence, Home Affairs and Finance serving as ex-officio trustees.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Purpose<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The Fund aims to provide relief and assistance during emergencies and distress, including measures relating to healthcare and disaster situations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Sources of funds<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: It receives voluntary donations, along with income generated through its corpus, such as interest on bank and fixed deposits.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Foreign contributions: The Fund is exempted from the operation of the FCRA, 2010, enabling it to receive foreign contributions.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>CSR benefit<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Contributions to PM-CARES have been recognised as eligible Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure, enabling companies to contribute towards the Fund as part of their CSR obligations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Tax benefit<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Donations to the Fund are eligible for income-tax deduction under Section 80G, subject to applicable provisions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>RTI status<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The PMO has maintained that <strong><em>PM-CARES is not a \u201cpublic authority\u201d under Section 2(h) of the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/right-to-information-act-2005\/\" target=\"_blank\">RTI Act, 2005<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. This has been a major point of debate concerning transparency and public accountability.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Audit<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The Fund\u2019s accounts are <strong><em>audited by an independent auditor appointed by the trustees,<\/em><\/strong> rather than being part of the regular government accounts.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>PM-CARES Fund: Key Financial Findings<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The audited financial statements show that the PM-CARES Fund\u2019s income and corpus increased in 2024-25, even as donations declined and interest earnings became an increasingly important source of income.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Donations declined<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Donations fell by around 30% to \u20b9480 crore in 2024-25 compared with the previous year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Total income increased<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The Fund\u2019s total income rose by 41% to \u20b91,279.9 crore in 2024-25.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Corpus increased<\/strong>: The closing balance reached \u20b98,452.06 crore, registering a 17.8% increase over the previous year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Interest income rose:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The Fund earned \u20b9475 crore as interest in 2024-25, almost equal to its donation income of \u20b9480 crore.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Fixed deposits boosted interest earnings<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The increase in interest income was associated with shifting the corpus from savings accounts to fixed deposits in 2023-24.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Refunds from agencies:<\/strong> Agencies that had earlier received money from the <strong>PM-CARES Fund returned \u20b9324 crore in 2024-25<\/strong>.\u00a0\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li>\n<p><strong>Note:<\/strong> <em>Implementing agencies<\/em> are the <strong>government departments, organisations or other bodies that receive money from the PM-CARES Fund to carry out specific relief or emergency-related activities<\/strong>. A <em>refund<\/em> means the <strong>money returned by these agencies to the PM-CARES Fund when the amount allocated to them was not fully used<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>PM-CARES Fund Issues\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The latest disclosures raise concerns regarding the effective utilisation of the Fund, transparency in its financial operations and the scope for public scrutiny.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Extremely low utilisation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Only \u20b987.85 lakh was utilised in 2024-25 despite the Fund having a closing balance of \u20b98,452.06 crore.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Large unutilised corpus<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The very low expenditure compared with the accumulated corpus raises questions about the extent to which the Fund is being deployed for its intended emergency-relief purpose.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Unexplained refunds<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Although \u20b9324 crore was refunded by implementing agencies, information on the nature of the payments, reasons for refunds and identity of the agencies was not provided.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>No details of original allocations<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The purpose for which the refunded money was originally allotted has not been disclosed, making it difficult to assess the utilisation of those allocations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Delayed disclosure<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Annual disclosures had not been uploaded since FY 2022-23, reducing the scope for timely scrutiny.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Missing audit notes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The accompanying notes to the audit report were not uploaded, limiting the information available for understanding the financial statements.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Limited information on fund sources<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Questions remain over the availability of information regarding the sources of funds, including foreign contributions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>RTI-related concern<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The Fund\u2019s position that it is not a public authority under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act, 2005 has been a major point of debate regarding transparency and public accountability.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The combination of low utilisation, unexplained refunds, delayed disclosures and limited information has led to criticism regarding the Fund\u2019s openness to public scrutiny.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Way Forward<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The way forward should focus on greater transparency, timely disclosure and effective utilisation of the Fund.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Timely disclosure<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Financial statements should be released regularly without prolonged delays.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Transparency<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Details of fund sources, utilisation, implementing agencies and refunds should be made publicly available.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Accountability<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The reasons for refunds and the purpose of original allocations should be disclosed to enable public scrutiny.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Effective utilisation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The large corpus should be utilised effectively for citizens during disasters and emergencies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Greater public scrutiny<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Relevant financial information and audit-related notes should be made available to strengthen accountability.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PM-CARES Fund issues explained with focus on transparency, fund utilisation, accountability, financial findings, refunds, and public scrutiny concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":120000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[786],"tags":[9639],"class_list":["post-119896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-general-studies","tag-pm-cares-fund-issues","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119896"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120008,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119896\/revisions\/120008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}