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The Modi government has been at pains to emphasise the virtues of PM-CARES over PMNRF in India's battle over #coronavirus, but both funds fail the test of transparency in one important way. See the story and the tweets in this thread for more details: https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
The audited reports on the PMNRF website consciously avoid revealing details about who its donors & beneficiaries are, the PM-CARES fund's dedicated page on the PM's official website also does not disclose these details either. https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
Why does the PMNRF choose to not reveal its donors & beneficiaries? The answer can be found in what the PMO told the Delhi High Court & the Central Information Commission a few years ago when RTI activist Aseem Takyar was denied these details. See: https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
This is the justification that the PMO gave the Delhi HC for not revealing details about the PMNRF's donors. See full details about the case in the story here: https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
We asked the Modi Govt if it will reveal the audited details of all donors & beneficiaries of the PM-CARES? There was no response to our questions. Off record, and in a "friendly" way, one govt official asked me why I was raising these questions right now. https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
Little wonder then that Aseem Takyar, the RTI activist who has been pursuing the PMNRF matter in the Delhi HC, had this to say about the PM-CARES fund when I asked his view: “It’s the same cap on the other head." https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
Rather than set up a new fund, activists like Takyar say, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ought to have used the PMNRF for raising funds after bringing it under parliamentary oversight & allowing it to be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
L Srikanth ( @logic), who first raised some of these concerns in a twitter thread, said, the Parliament ought to have oversight over both the PM-CARES & PMNRF, and the two funds should be audited by the CAG and the reports placed in public domain. https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
This was imp, ( @logic) argued, “to prevent situations such as investing the funds in long term debt instruments such as perpetual bonds and state development loans as has been the case with PMNRF.” Another, less known use of the funds made by the Govt https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
Activist @SaketGokhale, who has been pursuing this matter through the RTI, said, if the PM-CARES has civil society members, they should not have discretion over how public money is spent since that is the sole prerogative of the government of India. https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
"The moment PSUs & MPLAD funds have gone into it, it is public money that has gone into it. MPLAD funds come from the Consolidated Fund of India & there are rules on how this money is to be spent. It has to have parliamentary oversight," said @SaketGokhale https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
Senior Adv Dushyant Dave, president of the SCBA, told me, “It would be nice if the government were to clarify and allay the fears of the people by saying that we will subject it to the CAG audit." https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
Senior Adv Sanjay Hegde mentioned an important point. “The trust document needs to be made public. One cannot be solely dependent on press releases, which have no legal sanctity," he said. Why? + https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB
Hegde cited the example of the infamous “cement scam” in Maharashtra which saw the use of private trusts by the Congress party in early 1980s for raising funds in the name of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. See the story for more details. https://bit.ly/3aNEnMB ( @Sanjayuvacha2 )
