Tatsat Chronicle Magazine

PM CARES Received ₹10,990 Crore till March 2021, Spent ₹3,976 Crore

Of the fund collected, 64 percent of the ₹10,990 crore collected by the PM CARES Fund between March 27, 2020, and March 31, 2021, remained unused as of the latter date.
February 9, 2022
PM CARES
Pictures used for Representation purpose only. Photo Credit- Flickr

The government of India has spent ₹3,976 crore of the ₹10,990 crore PM CARES (Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation) Fund. The biggest expense, ₹1,392 crore, incurred was the procurement of 6.6 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Of the fund collected, 64 percent of the ₹10,990 crore collected by the PM CARES Fund between March 27, 2020, and March 31, 2021, remained unused as of the latter date.

As of March 2021, the PM CARES Fund, set up by the government with the aim of securing financial donations to help fight COVID-19, had ₹ 7,014 crore. The “dedicated fund with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency… and provide relief to the affected” spent ₹3,976 crore in the first year of its operation despite receiving ₹7,679 crore in donations in the financial year 2021.

The donations of ₹7,679 crore were received from within the country. The PM CARES fund was added to an opening balance of ₹3,077 crore from the financial year 2020 and income from interest amounting to ₹235 crore. Of the donations received, ₹495 were from foreign sources.

The biggest expense incurred during the same time frame was the procurement of 6.6 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines, the data shared by the government of India shows. This was followed by the expense of ₹1,311 crore made on the procurement of 50,000 Made in India ventilators.

The fund set aside ₹1,000 crore for the welfare of the country’s migrant populations.

Other listed expenses were ₹201.58 crore to set up 162 oxygen generation plants in the aftermath of the devastating second Covid-19 wave, which triggered an acute oxygen supply crisis across India; ₹20.41 crore was spent on upgrading the government-run labs to test and release Covid-19 vaccines; ₹50 crore was used to set up two Covid-dedicated hospitals in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur and Patna, as well as 16 labs to test RT-PCR samples in as many states.

Jyoti Verma

The writer is a media professional based in Delhi. She has been writing on diverse subjects, including sustainable businesses, environment and climate change, health and education and others.