Where has the money gone?
Rs 2,000 crore were spent for 50,000 ventilators, Rs 100crore for manufacture of vaccine, Rs 1,000 crore for aid to migrant labourers,and Rs 2,200 crore for the first phase of the vaccination drive.
These expenses amount to Rs 5,300 crore.
Rs 4,390 crore is still unaccounted for.
Rahul Gandhi leads
The senior Congress leader initiated the queries into thisfund via a Twitter tweet, and soon after the hashtag #PMCares became toptrending on the social media platform.
Why this fund?
This fund, PM Cares Fund, was established by the Governmentof India on 28 March 2020 to deal with the pandemic Corona virus.
This fund is voluntary and the public can donate to the sameto contribute their bit to help the motherland beat this beast.
The fund has four members – PM Narendra Modi, DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh, Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minster NirmalaSitharaman.
These four leaders bear the responsibility to see that themoney deposited by well-wishers of humanity is put to good use.
Above RTI Act?
The surprising thing about the fund, which has been providedfor the by common people, is that the workings of the fund are above the purviewof the common man.
The fund has been declared to be above RTI Act.
However, once this hard-to-digest revelation was made, thedonating entities began to reveal their donations publicly, and this is how thefigures quoted above were reached at.
The expenses on ventilators don’t match up
In response to an RTI in August 2020, the Health Ministryinformed that the ventilators awarded to the two companies AMTZ company of AndhraPradhesh government and CNC, a private company of Gujarat failed their trials.These were given the contracts from the PM Cares Fund.
CEO of company AgVa claims that the government gave an orderfor 10,000 ventilators but only took delivery of 5,000. The rest are stilllying in their godown.
Further, legal tussle among suppliers, and reduction ofcontract to one company from 13,500 ventilators to 10,000 ventilators, and othersimilar mess makes this essential medical device and the public money in the PMCares Fund a big question for an aware citizen of India and the world.