They asked why ministers were trustees in their official capacity and not as private citizens if the fund was a public trust.
A group of former civil servants on Saturday raised questions on the transparency of the PM-CARES fund and the Centre’s refusal to divulge details about it by saying that it was not a public authority under the ambit of the Right to Information Act. The group made the statement in an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was signed by 100 former bureaucrats, including Harsh Mander, AS Daulat, Sajjad Hassan and Anita Agnihotri. In the letter, the group wondered why the prime minister, the home minister, the defence minister and the finance minister were trustees of the fund in their official capacity instead of as private citizens if the fund was not a public authority. The PM-CARES, or the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations, fund was established with the stated objective of being a “dedicated national fund” to deal with “any kind of emergency or distress situation” in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Public sector firms, the armed forces and banks have contributed crores of rupees to the fund. The former bureaucrats also asked if the donations to PM-CARES fund should be eligible as Corporate Social Responsibility expenditure if it was a private trust. The letter cited a March 2020 government circular clarifying that contributions to the fund will qualify as CSR expenditure. The letter added that the donations could not be “legitimate CSR expenditure” had it not been set up by the Centre.
