PM CARES not for transparency

The PM-CARES Fund, set up by the government during the initial days of the Covid pandemic, has been a financial blackhole about which nothing much is known. The government has not cared to disclose where the money that makes the Fund comes from, how it is spent and where it goes. The recent announcement, appointing some persons as trustees and advisers of the Fund, has to be seen in this context. Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons, Justice K T Thomas, former Supreme Court judge, and Kariya Munda, former Deputy Speaker, have been nominated as new trustees. Rajiv Mehrishi, a former Comptroller and Auditor General of India, and Sudha Murthy, former Chairperson, Infosys Foundation, have been nominated to the advisory board. These are eminent personalities, but there are many other eminent personalities in the country, and it is not known why these were selected as trustees or advisers over others.

This question will be added to many other serious questions about the Fund which have yet to be answered. These questions were asked in the media, public fora, social media, and in courts. Not only has the government refused to answer them satisfactorily but has shifted its positions on the nature of the Fund to suit its convenience. The purported aim of the Fund was to deal with emergencies or distress situations such as the Covid pandemic. But there is no clarity on why it was created when the statutorily created Prime Minister’s Relief Fund existed for that purpose. The Prime Minister has been the Chairperson of the Fund and senior cabinet ministers its trustees, it is run out of the PMO, it uses government infrastructure and sports the national emblem, yet the government has refused to subject it to RTI queries or to a CAG audit.

From the beginning, there has been a lack of transparency and accountability about its constitution, functioning and accounts. The details of donations and donors are not disclosed but they are eligible for tax exemptions. The Fund is not audited by the CAG and RTI queries have bounced off it. The government has said that the new nominees’ “vast experience of public life would impart further vigour in making the fund more responsive to various public needs.” Association of some names and faces with the Fund will not add any credibility to it, when the criteria for choosing them are kept a secret, in the true traditions of the Fund. Age above 80 could have been a criterion for the trustees since most of the new trustees are octogenarians, but how that would add “vigour” to the Fund’s unknown activities would remain to be explained.