PMO says don't have records of Narendra Modi's donation to PM-CARES: RTI

President, Vice President offices provide details of donations by Kovind, Naidu to PM-CARES under RTI

The offices of the President and Vice President have provided the amount both donated to the controversial PM-CARES through the RTI Act but Prime Minister's Office has said that it has no information about Narendra Modi's contribution as it does not hold any such records.

Law student Aniket Gaurav had sought details of donations made by President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Modi separately.

In its reply on June 16 last year to the query raised six days earlier, the Rashtrapati Bhavan said the President has contributed his one month salary -- Rs five lakh -- towards PM-CARES fund.

Read | Indian missions didn’t approach any potential donor for PM-CARES in Islamabad, Beijing: RTI

On June 9 last year, the Vice President's Secretariat responded that Naidu contributed a month's salary -- Rs 4 lakh -- to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund (PMNRF).

"In addition to the above, he (Naidu) is contributing 30% of his monthly salary towards the PM-CARES Fund until the situation in the country becomes normal. So far, Rs 1.2 lakh per month has been contributed to this fund since April 2020," the Secretariat said its reply to the query filed on May 11, 2020.

Gaurav later filed an RTI with the Prime Minister's Office in August last year seeking information. An appeal was filed in October and he received the response from the PMO on January 29 this year.

It said, "information regarding donations made by the PM from his personal savings, inter-alia, is personal in nature and therefore not part of the records held by this Office."

There were reports earlier that Modi donated Rs 2.25 lakh from his own pocket as the "initial corpus" to the PM-CARES just after it was set up.

The Narendra Modi government has been stone-walling RTI queries on PM-CARES citing that it is a private entity not controlled by the government, raising questions from transparency activists and Opposition.

Read: PM-CARES now under 'gov.in' domain; Centre still says it is not public authority

The Trust deed dated March 27, 2020 said that the PM-CARES was "not created by or under the Constitution of India or by any law made by the Parliament or by any state legislature". It also went on to say that the Trust is "neither intended to be or is in fact owned, controlled or substantially financed by any government or any instrumentality of the Government".

However, a latest RTI in December last year showed that the controversial fund has been provided the official gov.in domain on a request from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

It has also come to light that the letter from the PMO was sent on March 27 and the approval for use of the official domain reserved for a few government departments and agencies for the PM-CARES came on the same day.