The Fund is brimming with a total corpus of Rs. 10990.17 crores – up from Rs. 3076.62 crores in 2020. Its big ticket initiatives include its grant of Rs. 2000 crore for supply of 50,000 made-in India ventilators to government run-hospitals across the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday chaired a meeting of the board of trustees of the PM CARES Fund. The prime minister is also the ex-officio Chairman of the PM CARES Fund. Other trustees attending the meeting were union home minister Amit Shah and the union finance minister Nrimala Sitharaman. A PIB-issued press release had no mention if defence minister Rajnath Singh, who is also a trustee of the fund, attended the meeting.
A presentation on the various initiatives under the aegis of the PM CARES for Children scheme said that the fund is so far supporting 4,345 children.
It was discussed that PM CARES has a larger vision on effectively responding to emergency and distress situations, not only through relief assistance, but also taking mitigation measures and capacity building.
Prime Minister Modi also nominated three new trustees to the Fund by exercising his power to nominate new members to the board of trustees. These include industrialist and Tata Sons’ chairman emeritus Ratan Tata, former supreme court judge, Justice K T Thomas and former deputy speaker Kariya Munda. The trustees’ involvement in the fund is pro bono.
Besides the new nominations, the trust also has appointed a board of advisors including Infosys Foundation’s Sudha Murthy, former CAG chief Rajiv Mehrishi and Anand Shah of Teach for India.
Prime Minister Modi said that participation of new trustees and advisors will provide wider perspectives to the functioning of the PM CARES Fund and that their vast experience of public life would impart further vigour in making the fund more responsive to various public needs.
Founded on 27th March, 2020, the PM CARES Fund is well funded with a total corpus of Rs. 10990.17 crores in 2021 – up from Rs. 3076.62 crores in 2020. While voluntary contributions have flowed in, a huge chunk of the funds has come from the CSR budgets of many business houses.
The big ticket initiatives of the fund include its grant of Rs. 2000 crore for supply of 50,000 made-in India ventilators to government run-hospitals across the country and an allocation to state and union territory administrations for care of migrant labourers. The fund had also supported the development of COVID-19 vaccine with Rs 100 crores.
