Where has the money gone?
Rs 2,000 crore were spent for 50,000 ventilators, Rs 100 crore 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 this fund via a Twitter tweet, and soon after the hashtag #PMCares became top trending on the social media platform.
Why this fund?
This fund, PM Cares Fund, was established by the Government of India on 28 March 2020 to deal with the pandemic Corona virus.
This fund is voluntary and the public can donate to the same to contribute their bit to help the motherland beat this beast.
The fund has four members – PM Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minster Nirmala Sitharaman.
Also read: As India kneels before Corona’s unprecedented surge why are Modi, Shah, and Mamata above Corona?
These four leaders bear the responsibility to see that the money deposited by well-wishers of humanity is put to good use.
Above RTI Act?
The surprising thing about the fund, which has been provided for the by common people, is that the workings of the fund are above the purview of the common man.
The fund has been declared to be above RTI Act.
However, once this hard-to-digest revelation was made, the donating entities began to reveal their donations publicly, and this is how the figures quoted above were reached at.
The expenses on ventilators don’t match up
In response to an RTI in August 2020, the Health Ministry informed that the ventilators awarded to the two companies AMTZ company of Andhra Pradhesh 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 order for 10,000 ventilators but only took delivery of 5,000. The rest are still lying in their godown.
Further, legal tussle among suppliers, and reduction of contract to one company from 13,500 ventilators to 10,000 ventilators, and other similar mess makes this essential medical device and the public money in the PM Cares Fund a big question for an aware citizen of India and the world.