PM CARE Fund To Be Audited By Independent Auditors Instead Of CAG
The impact of covid-19 has been spread worldwide including India. Total number of cases has been crossed about 65,000 across the country. The coronavirus outbreak has been declared as a pandemic by World Health Organisation (WHO). Protecting lives of people suffering from the disease and feeding the poor people during this pandemic has been the priority of the nation. Governments have swung into actions since the Corona virus attack created an unpredictable situation. India declared third nation-wide lockdown. COVID-19 has triggered a deep economic crisis during this lockdown period. While the central government is facing fiscal deficit hence they are accumulating a huge sum of money under PM CARES Fund as a corpus to fight COVID-19. The new fund has been created for donations from abroad after it was exempted from the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). PM CARES is a monetary fund established by honourable Prime Minister of India to fight medical emergency caused by COVID-19 pandemic. The PM CARES fund will be audited by independent auditors who will be appointed by its trustees which includes the prime minister. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) offices said that “the fund is based on donations of individuals and organisations. They also said that they have no right to audit the charitable organisatio. Hence PM CARES Fund comprises of money which is given by an individual and organisation during the crisis for a charity purpose so it will not be audited by Comptroller and Auditor General. All the contributions from PM CARE fund will be exempted by Income tax. The resources of PM CARE fund are now utilised primarily to render immediate relief to mostly migrant labours who are badly affected by the lockdown. The fund consisted entirely of public contributions and does not get any budgetary support. However opposition parties criticised Modi government questioning about the necessity of the fund when the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund already exists since 1948. However there is only a slide difference between Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund and Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund. PMNRF was established by Pt. Nehru in January, 1948 to provide relief to families of those who have been killed in natural calamities like floods, cyclones and earthquakes etc. It is also used for medical treatment like heart surgeries, kidney transplantation, cancer treatment and acid attack. While Prime Minister Modi announced the PM CARE Fund, a separate fund for COVID-19 relief encourages more people to contribute in the fund. According to the sources, the PMNRF is not audited by the CAG either but it has not stopped the government’s auditor from asking question about how the money was used when it provided for relief after 2013 Uttarakhand floods. PM CARES Fund is a completely different fund established to accept voluntarily donations; no monies are diverted from government exchequer. PM CARES does not owe its origin to a Central Executive’s decision or function under Section 7, 8 or 17 of the Government of India Act, 1935. The Fund lays down that as no guidelines can be laid down for disbursement of amount from PMCARES, as it is not considered as a part of any Government Scheme or business of the Central Government and also is not subject to audit of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). After taking into consideration the aforesaid points, this fund clearly falls outside the scope of public authority as defined under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act. Thus this one is a Public Charitable Trust which does not have Particular persons, by name, as trustees. Thus it’s our obligation as a citizen of India to contribute some amount to this fund because everyone is impacted by Coronavirus outbreak.
-By
Anushka Sharan
Student Reporter