The PM CARES Fund was created during the COVID-19 crisis to promise that public donations will be used in a clear and effective way for national relief operations. People are still asking questions about how it works and who is in charge of it years later. People are really angry about this, which has made them less likely to trust government-funded initiatives.
Ground Reports: Donors Talk About How Disappointed They Are
Rajesh Patel, a corporate donor who gave ₹5 lakh in 2020, said he was sorry in a recent interview. He works in Mumbai’s hectic financial district. “I gave thinking it would save lives directly, but years later, we hear of unused equipment rusting in warehouses,” he said, echoing what many small donors in cities around the country have said. Patel is angry because there are claims that ventilators were acquired at excessive prices, and some of them don’t work with Indian hospitals. This makes him worry about how the acquisitions were made.
In Delhi’s middle-class neighborhoods, the same things happen. Sunita Sharma, a stay-at-home mom who gave ₹10,000, signed online petitions asking for audits. She remarked, “PM CARES was sold as people’s money for people’s needs, but it feels like a black box because there is no transparency.” Reports from Pune indicated that over 200 people signed a local manifesto calling for the fund to be dissolved. They said that efforts to build oxygen plants were rejected even though there was enough money.
Key contributors are dissatisfied when equipment arrives late or isn’t used, and many of the ventilators they bought are said to be laying around.
There are no reports on how donations influence certain donors, therefore they don’t know.
Tax breaks that are meant to make things less apparent.
These voices show a change: what started as charity has turned into calls for accountability, and social media has converted personal stories into a national chorus.
Activists are angry about how secretive things are.
Since 2021, civil society groups have been leading the struggle by filing RTI requests and petitions to the Supreme Court. Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd.), an RTI activist from Chandigarh, said that PM CARES is a “trust deficit machine.” He remarked, “People gave money in good faith, but the government won’t call it a public fund, which goes against fiduciary principles.” This was in reference to failed legal attempts to get the information.
Subhash Datta, an activist in Kolkata, organized public protests and talked to more than 50 people who didn’t like the fund’s private trust status. “It’s not about the money; it’s about what has happened before. What stops future funds from doing the same thing if PM CARES isn’t checked? “Datta asked.” His group uncovered problems: independent audits showed that money was set aside for 158 oxygen plants, but only 75 would be operational by 2025.
Anjali Bhardwaj of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) and other activists are warning about problems with the system all around the country. “People need to be able to see the results of relief efforts in order to trust them.” “People can say bad things about PM CARES because it isn’t clear, which stops people from giving money in the future,” Bhardwaj remarked in recent forums. There were 1,000 people at the protests in Bengaluru, where they chanted “Audit PM CARES, Restore Trust.” This was a mix of things done online and in person.
A more general complaint from civic society
Civil society groups, such think tanks and NGOs, paint a bad picture of how legitimate institutions are. Studies of similar funds in other countries found that India’s model was the only one that wasn’t clear. It’s apparent that donors are tired; every year after COVID, donations to government funds dropped a lot.
V. Suresh, a lawyer and activist in Chennai, pointed out that the legislation was not clear: even if huge firms like Tata and Reliance gave crores, the fund’s private status meant that it could not be watched. “This makes a separate treasury that only the PMO is in charge of,” Suresh added, asking for a review by parliament.
Independent polls demonstrate a definite drop: by 2025, people’s trust in government welfare programs had decreased a lot from 2020 levels, and PM CARES was a big reason why. Civil society groups in Hyderabad brought together contributors and activists to chat. They came to the conclusion that annual audits may help rebuild trust.
Arguments and counterarguments from the government
Responses from officials focus more on efficiency than on being open. The PMO keeps PM CARES functioning so that it may rapidly respond to disasters and give out huge amounts of money for healthcare. Annual reports outline broad categories. “Unnecessary RTI would stop operations,” a high-ranking official remarked, pointing to the funded vaccine doses.
But justifications don’t hold up when it comes to specifics: congressional panels pointed out payments to suppliers that didn’t appear proper, but nothing happened. Donors like Narayana Murthy, who started Infosys and was an early backer, eventually advocated for hybrid models that blended speed with audits.
Activists stated that people all over the world needed real-time dashboards to preserve their trust. “India’s donors don’t want to be able to say no; they just want to see,” policy analysts said.
Numbers Show a Lack of Trust
The data reveals how profound the disagreement is. A lot of people in cities in India didn’t know how much they were spending, and there were significant calls for audits. Donations dropped sharply from their greatest levels in 2020–21 to much lower levels by 2024–25.
There are a lot of stories in the press about procurement scams. Hospitals are paying a lot of money for foreign ventilators that don’t work very well. Oxygen plants were able to do some work even though there were challenges with the technology.
Impact numbers suggest that there are a lot less donors after 2022.
A number of Supreme Court cases were thrown out for technical reasons.
There has been a lot more media attention of the controversy in the previous few years.
These data reveal that people don’t trust the information they get and that they believe what they think is true.
What this implications for how much people trust relief operations
There is more to the matter than just PM CARES; it raises questions about government-funded charities. India’s CSR requirements brought in a lot of money every year, but controversies make firms less likely to give. Experts predict that crisis financing would drop in the future if no changes were made.
Activists demand improvements, such as monitoring payments that are open to RTI. Civil society is seeking for legislation that say trusts tied to the PMO have to make disclosures.
Reports from cities show that young people are unhappy; college students now like NGOs more.
Public Trust at Stake: Citizens React to PM CARES Fund Controversy
