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Complaints about hundreds of ventilators purchased with Narendra Modi’s iconic Covid-19 recovery fund raised concerns about transparency and corruption in how the charity spends its money.
PM Cares was established by the Prime Minister of India in March last year. It is a public charitable trust designed to “provide relief to the victims” during disasters. Modi leads the fund in his official capacity and three cabinet members who serve as trustees.
The fund attracted five days after its launch more than A donation of 30 billion rupees ($423 million) from tycoons such as Mukesh Ambani and Indian state-owned enterprises.
During the disastrous second wave of the epidemic in India, donations from people from all walks of life including the Dalai Lama and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin continued to flow in from home and abroad. But critics complain that there is little transparency in how PM Cares spends its donations.
Activists also questioned why PM Cares was even established as another facility, the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund, which already exists and serves a similar purpose.
During the pandemic in which more than 28 million people were infected, the controversy grew as the state government worked hard to provide health care. Over 335,000 Be killed.
The Indian government insists that PM Cares is not a public institution and therefore does not need to disclose its donors or expenditures in detail.
A government spokesperson said on Wednesday, “PM Cares is completely transparent. Expenses incurred under PM Cares have been transparently entered [the] Public area. “
The fund has not yet announced its audit results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021.
“We understand that unless there is openness and public scrutiny, funds often fail to reach their goals,” said Anjali Bhardwaj, an anti-corruption activist based in New Delhi. “This can lead to misappropriation, bossy and corruption.”
PM Cares use Image of Modi And issued a press statement on the Indian government website. Some government websites have a pop-up window asking visitors to donate money.
According to the PM Cares website, the government has allocated 20 billion rupees for the purchase of 50,000 “Made in India” ventilators, of which 10 billion rupees will be used to purchase migrant workers who have lost their jobs due to the lockdown, and 1 billion rupees will be used for vaccine development. It did not provide other details.
“We rely on the information they provide [PM Cares] To us, there is really no disclosure,” said transparency activist Saket Gokhale, who has submitted a petition to the Supreme Court requesting disclosure of PM Cares’ expenditures. He added that the fund is “not transparent, which is a big deal. Red flags”.
Several opposition-controlled states complained that the ventilators purchased with PM Cares money had problems or were not properly installed in the hospital and therefore could not be used.
“The oxygen flow is unstable. The examiner is not working. It stopped suddenly,” said Rajasthan Health Minister Ragu Sharma. “Such a large sum of money was spent on purchasing these ventilators, but they cannot be used.”
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Raj Bahadur, a health adviser to the Punjab Provincial Government, stated that 237 of the 320 ventilators donated by PM Cares to the state had failed.
“The ventilator is not as good as it should be, and I am sure there are some flaws,” Bahadur said.
New Delhi stated that the states have not yet installed all donated ventilators, and the central government has carried out “vigorous follow-up” to help use life-saving machines.
The Mumbai High Court stated last week that the failure of the ventilator at the Aurangabad Government Hospital in Maharashtra was “serious problem“.
The judges added: “If the PM Cares fund is to be used to provide ventilators, then it should be a ventilator worthy of medical use.”
However, the government has submitted an affidavit deny Aurangabad ventilator manufactured by manufacturer Jyoti CNC is provided through PM Cares.
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