Noah saved for the Great Flood. Manu prepared for the deluge. Joseph stored grain for seven years of famine.
And then there is our Prime Minister- Narendra Modi.
By the end of 2024–25, the PM CARES fund had a closing balance of ₹8,452 crore. During that financial year, it spent just ₹87.85 lakh. That’s 0.01% spent. 0.01.
So, what exactly is all that money being saved for? A disaster of biblical proportions that perhaps only the PM knows about?
Because, honestly, nothing else explains it.
If you follow the news, you probably know this by now. After a long delay, the receipts and payments of the PM CARES Fund for 2023–24 and 2024–25 were finally released.
And what do they show?
That PM CARES hardly spent any money and transferred 93% of its money into fixed deposits.
But the real story of PM CARES is not just that it barely spent money.
It is much more dubious.
It is about staying away from scrutiny.
It is about taking foreign donations.
It is about having no stated policy on how much has to be kept in reserves.
And it is about depriving India’s civil society organisations.
I’ll take you through all of it in this week’s Let Me Explain.
In 2020, journalist Poonam Aggarwal did an important story for The Quint.
She sourced a letter written by this Japanese multinational company. to a Ministry of External Affairs official, offering help to COVID-hit people in India.
The letter said, “We would like to support such people, provide daily commodities such as food & water.”
Sounds normal, right? Help from anyone was welcome at that time.
But the letter ended with these lines-
“In addition, our Indian factory got approval for restarting production activity in Maharashtra yesterday. We deeply appreciate your support and efforts for this matter again.”
The timing and wording raise an obvious question. But to be clear: they do not, by themselves, prove a quid pro quo.
The larger problem is the lack of full donor-level disclosure. Without it, the public has no easy way to independently examine whether such conflicts exist.
It is not just this Japanese company.
Russia’s State-owned defence exports company committed 15 crores. Fairfax gave 9 crores. And many more like that.
There were even allegations that Chinese companies including Tik tok donated. and the government that went after news outlet Newsclick alleging it took Chinese money, did not even return the donations made to PM Cares.
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Let me tell you in a nutshell all that is wrong with PM Cares.
PM CARES is beyond some of the most important forms of public scrutiny that ordinarily apply to public institutions. It is not audited by the CAG. A citizen cannot get any information under the RTI.
The receipt and payment account reports are not released annually. While citizens have to file for IT returns promptly.
Now even when they are released, these are just bare-bones statement
The statements for these two years have lesser details than previous years, which is quite an achievement.
93% of the money is being kept in fixed deposits. Sure, a disaster fund obviously needs reserves. But what is the publicly disclosed policy that says how much money should be held in reserve, for what kind of disaster, and when those reserves should be deployed?”
If your friend asks you, but why should we know how PM Cares spent its money- we trust the PM. Then you must remind the friend about what happened in Aurangabad in April 2021. 150 ventilators that came to the hospital failed- people could have died using them and so doctors discontinued use. The Bombay High Court was told by the union government that the faulty ventilators produced by a Gujarat-based company had not been funded by PM CARES. The episode itself shows the transparency problem. When even the records around a major purchase are disputed, how can the public trace where the money went?
Is there a quid pro quo like we saw with electoral bonds? We just don’t know
Last year, 325 crore rupees was refunded from implementing agencies. Who refunded such huge amounts and why? Was there more faulty equipment? Did some agency fail to implement some healthcare initiatives? Again, we have no idea.
While even the smallest NGO in the country has to go through the FCRA’s strict rules, the PM Cares is exempt from it
The fund has been spending less and less with every passing year. Why? Is India a rich country where people in none of its regions need money to deal with disasters?
Now don't immediately point to the PM’s National Relief Fund, the NDRF and the NDMF. Because a CAG report recently said that not even half of emergency disaster funds were transferred to states.
So what is all this money being saved for?
Like I said earlier, a disaster of biblical proportions that only the PM knows about?
Some activists believe that large amounts may be used just before some elections kick in. Because, at that time, Model code of conduct would have kicked in and governments cannot spend money. But PM Cares can. And benevolently, the PM would step in.
And the last point. PM Cares has ended up gobbling up money that smaller NGOs could have got.
A study by this Washington based NGO- found that the PM Cares deprived Civil Society Organisations of a major chunk of CSR funding.
PM CARES enjoys a particularly powerful combination of incentives: donations qualify for 100% tax deduction, and corporate contributions can count as CSR expenditure. Many grassroots organisations do not enjoy the same combination of incentives.
This tax and CSR structure has steered away corporate money towards PM Cares rather than organisations working directly on the ground
The PM Cares account reports give some information, but not all information.
Which is why we must keep asking
Where is the complete donor list? Who gave how much and when.
Can we trace every disbursement to a beneficiary or project?
Without that, it’s evident that the PM does not care for transparency.
And words will remain words.
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