The question baffling the minds of citizens of India regarding the ownership of the PM-CARES Fund remains unanswered by the Centre until now, but as the trust document got public now, furnishes the report card of the actions of the government wrapped in the folds of “donations for people hit by covid”.
A clause in the trust deed reveals the fund to be a private entity rather than the earlier proclaimed government trust that had been set up to receive corporate donations. This major revelation also brings to light that the trust is exempted from the RTI scrutiny and isn’t answerable to any person or organization as it is not a public fund.
Even after being a private establishment as called in the deed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is noted as the chairman of the trust that is registered with the revenue department of the national capital.
With no declaration or stamp of the public’s right over the fund that was heavily publicized to be used for the benefit of the public in view of the pandemic, several questions have been raised challenging the usage and intention of the trust.
Stating the private hold over the funds, point 5.3 of the Trust Deed mentions, “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. There is no control of either the central government or any state governments, either direct or indirect, in the functioning of the trust in any manner whatsoever.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had originally set up the PM-CARES or Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund in the month of March this year when India had just begun facing the wrath of covid-19. The fund was to “deal with emergency or distress situations like the coronavirus pandemic”, while filling up with donations from people across the world.
The fund established in March is headed by Narendra Modi in the role of its chairman as other senior cabinet ministers from the trustees of a trust funded by the public.
After getting registered in Delhi on March 27th, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs brought out an official document passing the PM-CARES fund as a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative to receive corporate donations, despite being a private entity.
The Companies Act, which defines activities eligible for corporate donations, reads: “Contribution to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund or any other fund set up by the Central Government or the State Governments for socio-economic development and relief and funds for the welfare of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, other backward classes, minorities, and women.”
Anjali Bhardwaj, an activist, could get her hands on some documents by registering for an RTI query. These documents enlist the Ministry of Corporate Affairs calling the March 28 Office Memorandum as a “fund set up by the central government”.
The point to note here is the fact that the trust deed obtained a day prior to this (the day of the fund’s setup) said it wasn’t a government-run project, which directly implies that it hence couldn’t have received any corporate donations as it clearly was not eligible for it.
However, on May 26th, close to 2 months after this announcement, the Ministry of CA added the fund to the Companies Act along with PM National Relief Fund, having an effective date of March 28th.
This means the PM-CARES fund was a private funding project that wrongly received the corporate donations for two months, the time when most of the donations were filled in.
The issue was first highlighted by the former Finance Minister of India, P. Chidambaram on August 20th. He asked as to how the donations were being accepted as a CSR when the Fund is a private entity.
“If the Fund was not set up by the central government, why are the PM and three Ministers serving as Trustees? Who appointed them as Trustees? If the Fund is a private established fund, why are donations to the Fund counted against CSR?” read the former minister’s tweet followed by his next day’s post saying, “In addition to the questions I had raised yesterday, there are more questions about PM-CARES Fund. Was the Fund set up by the central government as concluded by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs? If not, who set up the Fund and in what capacity?”
NDTV reported that it had filed an RTI application seeking the details and documents pertaining to the trust deed in the PM’s Office, however, they were denied the access giving the reason that the fund was not a public unit and RTI requests, hence, cannot be valid over them.
