AFTER PUBLIC industry businesses, a sweeping range of edu institutions, from Navodaya educational institutions for rural candidates to IITs, IIMs & central universities, have together contributed INR 21.81 cr to the PM’s Citizen Support & Relief in Urgency Situations (PM CARES) fund — mostly from employees salaries, RTI reports entered by The Indian Express show.
The PM’s Workplace, that manages the fund, has declined to provide information of contributions got, informing that PM CARES is “not a people authority within the ambit of…the RTI Act”.
The fund has been set up following the COVID-19 outburst, & had a corpus of INR 3,076.62 cr on Mar 31, 2024, just 4 days in start, of that INR 3,075.85 cr have been listed as “voluntary contributions”, as per its officer site.
On Aug 19, The Indian Express recorded that 38 PSUs utilized their own Corporate Social Responsibility funds to together contribute over INR 2,105 cr. However for multiple edu institutions (watch chart), the “voluntary contributions” had come from salaries of teaching & non-teaching employees — & in some of the instances, even from pensioners & candidates.