‘Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund’ (PM CARES Fund)’ had been set up in 2020 with the Prime Minister as ex-officio Chairman and Minister of Defence, Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Finance, Government of India as ex-officio Trustees. The declared objective of the fund dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, and to provide relief to the affected. It was also declared that the fund would be audited by independent auditors and not by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Since then, it was unknown what has been the corpus of the fund and how it has been utilized so far.
Now, some details of who had contributed to the fund has appeared in the media. According to the Indian Express dated 11 March 2021, the Fund has received “Rs 500 Crore from Reliance Industries; Rs 500 crore from Tata Group; Rs 400 crore from Aditya Birla Group; Rs 100 crore from Adani Enterprises Limited; and, Rs 175 crore from three leading private sector banks…. ICICI Bank tops the list for private banks with Rs 80 crore followed by HDFC Bank with Rs 70 crore and Kotak Mahidra with Rs 25 crore. The donors include Yes Bank, which was rescued from the verge of collapse last year by an RBI plan, with Rs 10 crore – and an additional Rs 1.9 crore from a day’s staff salaries…38 PSUs used their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds to together contribute over Rs 2,105 crore to the fund….educational institutions, from Navodaya schools to IITs, IIMs and Central universities, together contributed Rs 21.81 crore. Among the other corporate groups that contributed to PM CARES are: Larsen & Toubro (Rs 150 crore); Infosys (Rs 50 crore under destitute care and rehabilitation); Hero Motors (Rs 50 crore); Mahindra & Mahindra (Rs 20 crore); Tech Mahindra (Rs 20 crore); Dabur India Ltd (Rs 11 crore); Asian Paints (Rs 35 crore to PM Cares and other state-run programmes)… Private banks have also chipped in. IDFC First Bank pledged Rs 5 crore to the PM Cares fund and, additionally, its employees voluntarily contributed a day’s salary amounting to Rs 3.29 crore…. IDBI Bank Ltd said that its employees including officers and Class 3 & 4 staff, “from their salary have contributed Rs 5.11 crore in April 2020″…Axis Bank’s annual report said it set aside Rs 100 crore for fighting Covid-19 and that the bank’s employees have “contributed a part of their salaries towards the PM Cares.”
Who have been caregivers to PM Cares
