NIRMALA SITHARAMAN ON PM CARES FUND.

Ever since the COVID-19 struck India and the Prime Minister announced PM Cares Fund for battling against the challenges imposed due the pandemic, the debate on why Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund’s existence was overlooked to make another fund called Prime Minister Cares Fund surfaced. Along with it came the age old speculations on the transparency of anything done by any government that isn’t a colliation of the Left parties packed with false allegations and interpretations of different schemes introduced by the government.

And as the monsoon session started, the opposition took on the opportunity to unleash the propagatory attacks on the government backing with misinterpreted facts and twisted statements of honorary members of the cabinet and parliament.

Indian Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman took a dig on the opposition on the questions raised against the transparency of the PM Cares Fund when PMNRF was already existent. Replying to which, FM said:

While the PM Cares Fund is registered, the PMNRF isn’t even when operational for many years.

The opposition wouldn’t actually question about the PMNRF because they themselves are involved in fraudulent  transactions and no records of meetings and minutes, and not a single sitting meeting has been called since 1985.

No audits and disclosures yet they have the audacity to question the transparency of the PMCF and put the PMNRF under the carpet. Yes hypocrisy much!

“Transparency should start from home.”

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman defended the PM CARES, and asked why PMNRF had not been registered as a Trust despite being in operation for years. “Like charity, transparency should start from home,” she said, adding that PM-CARES is registered as a public charitable trust but PMNRF is not.

Although the administration of both PMCF and PMNRF is the same viz., Joint Secretary of PM. But the question lies with the management of the two funds while the management of PM Cares Fund lies with the persons via the virtue of their positions, the management in PMNRF is with the PM and the President of INC.

Clearly the opposition is all about the dynasty led party and not the nation.

“Only Congress president is a member of the PMNRF. Why wasn’t there a Jana Sangh representative? How is transparency achieved by only the Congress party president as part of the PMNRF?”

She said “Till today you didn’t bother to ask it to be registered, I don’t understand why. You should have actually asked. No, not one voice in that party. It took 23 MPs to write a letter now after 50 years. Like charity, transparency should start from home,” she said.

Adding further, she said the big difference between PM CARES and PMNRF lies in the management of the funds. In PM CARES while Prime Minister is the ex-officio member and trustees include Ministers of Home, Defence and Finance, and nominated ex-officio trustees who are eminent persons from the field of science. “Management and decision making goes on record with regularly held meetings and recorded minutes,” she said. Whereas, in PMNRF, the management consists of Prime Minister, and President of the Congress party.

Coming to the CSR classification, the same goes with the PMNRF. Simply put CSR is the donations made by the companies towards the social welfare activities. Generally the companies are to give a contribution of 2% of their net profits (in case of companies having a net profit of over 5 cr rupees). The government has included the PMCF in the list.

Also, the deductions u/s 80G is allowed for individuals contributing to the extent of 100% amount donated for both the said funds. The opposition questioning the deductions for PMCF only and ignoring the PMNRF says a lot about it’s agenda.

The opposition is to realise that the nation need a competent opposition who indulges in constructive criticism and not behaving like kids making a joke out of the democracy and yet have the audacity to foul cry of the dying democracy.

It’s high time of realisation for all the opposition parties that they need to grow up and act like grown ups for the sake of their “image”.

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