Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the creation of an assistance and emergency situation relief fund where people can contribute and help in the government’s fight against coronavirus.

A public charitable trust under the name of Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) has been set up keeping in mind the need for having a dedicated national fund with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide relief to the affected. 

Political leaders, corporates, defence personnel, employees of PSUs such as Railways and Bollywood personalities were among a cross-section of organisations and people who pledged their contribution to the fund.

President Ram Nath Kovind said he will donate a month’s salary to the fund to “help the nation tide over the crisis of COVID-19” and appealed to countrymen to donate generously to it. 

Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and several Union ministers including Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Kiren Rijiju and Santosh Gangwar were among those who made a similar commitment.

The Railways, the country’s largest public sector employer, will donate Rs 151 crore to the PM CARES Fund.

The Army, Navy and the Indian Air Force as well as employees of the Defence Ministry have decided to donate one day’s salary totalling around Rs 500 crore.

Significance of PM Cares Fund

Distress situations, whether natural or otherwise, demand expeditious and collective action for alleviating the suffering of those affected, mitigation/control of damage to infrastructure and capacities. 

Therefore, building capacities for quick emergency response and effective community resilience has to be done in tandem with infrastructure and institutional capacity reconstruction/enhancement.

Use of new technology and advanced research findings also become an inseparable element of such concerted action.

The Prime Minister’s Office has been receiving spontaneous and innumerable requests for making donations to support the government in the wake of this emergency, it said in a statement. 

This fund will enable micro-donations as a result of which a large number of people will be able to contribute with the smallest of denominations.

Prime Minister is the chairman of this trust and its members include defence minister, home minister and finance minister.

May boost CSR spending

The corporate affairs ministry has said contributions to the PM CARES Fund would qualify as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spending under the companies law.

Corporates have spent Rs 52,000 crore towards social welfare activities in the last five financial years and now making contributions to the Prime Minister’s relief fund will further help them meet their obligations under the companies law, according to a senior government official.

Under the Companies Act, 2013 certain classes of profitable companies are required to shell out at least two per cent of their three-year annual average net profit towards CSR activities in a financial year. 

Now that the PM CARES Fund has been set up, those who have not discharged their obligation towards CSR or have underspent, can utilise this opportunity to contribute to the fund to make good the deficiency, he said.

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