From day one, the government is insisting that the PM-CARES is a private entity not controlled by it but a fresh RTI has shown that the controversial fund has been given to 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.
The fund, which has attracted criticism from the Opposition and activists over charges of opaqueness a reluctance to come under the RTI regime citing that it is not a public authority and that is not controlled by the government, had come into being on March 27, the date on which it was registered as well as it got IT exemption.
"This fund is completely financed by donations received from individuals/organisations/CSRs (Corporates)/foreign individuals/foreign organisations/PSUs and not at all financed by the appropriate government and administered by private individuals as trustees, which is a compulsory condition to invoke section 2(h) of the Right to Information Act, therefore, PM CARES fund cannot be considered a public authority," the RTI reply dated December 24 by the Office of the Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemption) has said.
The Narendra Modi government has been stone-walling RTI queries on PM-CARES citing that it is not a public authority. The Trust deed dated March 27, publicised recently, 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 nor is in fact owned, controlled or substantially financed by any government or any instrumentality of the Government".
(Published 29 December 2020, 14:19 IST)
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