Rs 20,000 yearly to each school-going youngster orphaned by the COVID-19 pandemic — this was one of many main guarantees made by the Union authorities as a part of the PM CARES Fund. However within the monetary yr 2024-2025, solely a mere Rs 88 lakh was launched for this function. The quantity, if divided among the many 3,383 kids the federal government listed as beneficiaries of the PM CARES for Kids Scheme, would come to solely Rs Rs 2,596 per youngster.
In actual fact, this Rs 88 lakh – making up 0.001 % of the Fund’s corpus – was the one quantity the Union authorities spent throughout 2024-25. By the top of FY ’25, the Fund had Rs 8,452 crore. Round 93 % of that is saved in fastened deposits.
The numbers had been revealed when the PM CARES Fund launched its receipts and funds accounts for the final two monetary years, 2023-24 and 2024-25, after an extended delay.
The numbers that don’t add up
The PM CARES for Kids was launched in Could 2021, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi promising assist for youngsters who misplaced dad and mom in the course of the COVID pandemic. It guarantees help for schooling, medical health insurance, assist for boarding and lodging, and Rs 10 lakh after they flip 18. The PM CARES for Kids web site says 4,543 purposes have been authorised to date.
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment the Lok Sabha in December 2025 that beneath the PM CARES for Kids scheme, an annual scholarship of Rs 20,000 is offered for every youngster – a month-to-month stipend of Rs 1,000 plus an annual allowance of Rs 8,000 in direction of faculty charges, books, uniform, footwear, and many others.
However spending on PM CARES for Kids has dropped drastically, from Rs 346 crore in FY ’23 to Rs 15 crore in FY ’24, to only Rs 88 lakh in FY ’25.
The Union authorities it transferred these funds to three,383 kids in 2024-25. This could make up a complete of Rs 6.76 crore. However the quantity launched to the scheme in FY ’25 , in response to the PM CARES report, was Rs 87,84,840.
This might quantity to solely Rs 2,596 for every of the three,383 kids, or Rs 20,000 for simply 439 youngsters.
93 % in fastened deposits
The experiences additionally present that the Fund has moved a giant chunk of its corpus into a set deposit. By the top of FY ’24, it had Rs 6,641 crore in fastened deposits, on which it reported receiving pursuits of Rs 469 crore throughout FY ’25.
This practically equals the quantity obtained in home donations to the Fund throughout the identical interval, that’s, Rs 479 crore. One other Rs 325 crore was obtained in refunds from implementing businesses.
By the top of FY ’25, the Fund had saved Rs 7,847 crore in fastened deposits, which is 93 % of its corpus. Solely Rs 605 crore was saved in a financial savings account. This, regardless of many states going through disasters resembling floods, cyclones, landslides, chilly waves, and many others. looking for funds for reduction, and the Union authorities not assembly their calls for.
Journalist Poonam Agarwal, who has reported on the opacity round PM CARES, mentioned that whereas the Fund was set as much as take care of ‘any form of emergency or misery state of affairs’, the cash is now mendacity idle.
“So many disasters occur yearly, together with the current Assam floods. Why are they not utilizing this cash over there?” she requested.
States resembling , , and have identified that that they had obtained solely a small fraction of funds looked for reduction for floods, landslides or drought.
A Comptroller and Auditor Common of India (CAG) report not too long ago revealed that the Union authorities has not spent even half of the funds beneath the Nationwide Catastrophe Response Fund (NDRF). Of the overall Rs 11,474 crore sanctioned beneath NDRF as help for calamities of extreme nature, solely Rs 5,356 crore was transferred to states.
Not like the NDRF, Poonam mentioned within the case of PM CARES, folks have donated their very own cash or had been required to forego a part of their salaries with the idea that it could be used to strengthen the general public well being sector.
Calls for for transparency
The PM CARES Fund is a ‘public charitable belief’ arrange on March 27, 2020, quickly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. It was shaped to take care of emergency conditions such because the pandemic and was registered beneath the Registration Act, 1908. Nonetheless, since then, the one bills proven by the Fund are in direction of COVID-related bills resembling ventilators, oxygen vegetation, vaccines, and advantages to kids who misplaced their dad and mom to COVID.
Since its inception, the PM CARES Fund has remained exterior the ambit of the Proper to Data (RTI) Act, regardless of constant efforts by RTI activists resembling Lokesh Batra, Anjali Bharadwaj, and others, to demand transparency.
