PM-Cares Fund Received Rs 13,000 Crore till March, 60% Spent on Fight against Covid-19 | Exclusive

The PM-Cares Fund received over Rs 13,000 crore till the end of March this year and had nearly Rs 5,400 crore balance on that date, with the rest being spent on various measures in the fight against Covid.

News18 has reviewed the audited statement of the PM-Cares Fund for 2021-22 which shows that over Rs 13,000 crore has been collected in two years since the inception of the fund in March 2020. Nearly 60% of this amount – around Rs 7,700 crore — has been spent till March this year on various heads such as setting up medical oxygen generation plants, providing ventilators to government hospitals and establishing makeshift hospitals, the latest statement of PM-Cares Fund shows.

The contributions received in 2021-22 saw a considerable decline from the previous financial year when the pandemic was raging in the country. While the fund received Rs 7,183 crore from within the country and Rs 495 crore from abroad in 2020-21, Rs 1,897 crore was received from within the country in the last financial year and only Rs 41 crore from abroad. The initial corpus of Rs 2.25 lakh to the PM-Cares Fund in March 2020 was contributed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from his personal earnings.

The statement shows that the PM-Cares Fund has earned Rs 160 crore as interest income in the last financial year from the amount which was in corpus. Even in 2020-21, the PM-Cares Fund earlier had Rs 235 crore as interest income on the corpus in the fund. This shows that of the Rs 13,054 crore coming into the PM-Cares Fund till last March, Rs 395 crore was on account of interest income.

THE EXPENSES

A total of Rs 835 crore from the fund was spent last financial year on providing 50,000 ‘Made in India’ ventilators to government hospitals, while Rs 1703 crore was spent on installation of additional Dedicated Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) Medical Oxygen Generation Plants across the country. Around Rs 500 crore was spent on procurement of 99,986 oxygen concentrators, while Rs 322 crore was spent on procurement of 1.5 lakh SpO2 based oxygen control systems with non-rebreather masks and 10 lakh additional such masks, the audited statement shows.

At least Rs 83 crore from the PM-Cares fund was spent on establishment of two 500-bedded makeshift Covid hospitals, one each at Jammu and Srinagar, while Rs 13 crore was spent on establishment of a makeshift 500-bed Atal Bihari Vajpayee Covid hospital by DRDO at Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.

Around Rs 190 crore was spent on procurement of liquid oxygen equipment by Indian Oil Corporation through the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Rs 68 crore was spent on reactivating the 500- ICU-bedded Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Covid Hospital at Delhi in 2021-22.

In 2020-21, Rs 1,311 crore was spent from the fund for providing ‘Made in India’ ventilators to government hospitals and Rs 1,000 crore was allotted to states and UTs for welfare of migrants. Also, Rs 1,392 crore was spent in 2020-21 for procurement of 6.6 crore doses of vaccines.

NEW TRUSTEES

Earlier this year, veteran industrialist Ratan Tata, former Supreme Court judge KT Thomas, and former deputy Lok Sabha speaker Kariya Munda were nominated as trustees of the PM-CARES Fund.

Further, Rajiv Mehrishi, former Comptroller and Auditor General of India; Sudha Murthy, former chairperson, Infosys Foundation; and Anand Shah, Co-founder of Teach for India and Former CEO of Indicorps and Piramal Foundation, were nominated as eminent persons for constitution of an advisory board.

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