Only Rs 87 lakh was spent out of a staggering Rs 8,500 crore balance in the PM CARES Fund during FY 2024-25, with nearly 93 per cent of the public corpus sitting idle in bank fixed deposit (FD) accounts.
This startling revelation from newly released audit reports has reignited intense criticism over the trust’s opacity and unutilised reserves.
Comparisons with electoral bonds
Addressing fears of political misuse, transparency and accountability activist Anjali Bhardwaj argued that the opaque structure of PM CARES Fund closely resembles the controversial electoral bond scheme.
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Calling electoral bonds the “mother of all scams”, she explained on The Federal’s AI With Sanket show how non-transparent financial channels create significant opportunities for systemic corruption and political patronage.
Because the Prime Minister and senior Union Cabinet ministers govern the PM CARES Fund as private trustees, Bharadwaj warned of a high potential for quid pro quo arrangements. Corporates donating large sums into the fund could potentially receive government contracts, regulatory leniency, or policy favours in return.
This lack of accountability is further compounded by the fund’s special exemption from the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). While audit reports indicate that foreign remittances remain a relatively small fraction of total receipts, FCRA immunity legally permits the trust to accept undisclosed foreign funds without standard statutory checks.
‘It has turned into savings scheme’
Also on the show, anti-corruption activist Anjali Damania expressed serious concern over the fact that 93 per cent of the fund’s total balance is locked inside fixed deposits. According to the audit report, these fixed deposits generated an interest revenue of nearly Rs 469 crore. Damania questioned whether PM CARES had turned into a savings scheme rather than a relief fund.
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Damania emphasised that while relief money sits unused in bank accounts, several states have recently suffered severe devastation from natural calamities. Recent floods in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir received no assistance or financial disbursement from the PM CARES Fund, raising questions about what emergency condition would finally trigger its deployment.
She noted that the trustees could easily pass a single resolution to redirect these idle reserves toward urgent public needs, such as upgrading dilapidated public hospitals or improving government school infrastructure. Instead, the money continues to sit in banking institutions without serving any tangible public good.
PM CARES Fund not under RTI
The PM CARES Fund was established in March 2020 during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic as a dedicated relief fund for national emergencies. In its initial days, central government notifications declared it a public entity, enabling over Rs 3,000 crore to be rapidly collected from public sector unit (PSU) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds. However, when citizens and activists filed Right to Information (RTI) applications seeking details about sources and expenditures, the government reversed its position.
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The Central government subsequently claimed that PM CARES is not a public authority and was not created by the government, effectively removing it from the purview of the RTI Act. Furthermore, the fund is not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, relying instead on private auditing firms.