The Congress on Monday, 30 March, attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the creation of the new PM-CARES trust to help contain coronavirus in the country, asking what was the need to create a separate trust when Rs 3,800 crore was lying unused in PM National Relief Fund.
Party leader Shashi Tharoor said that instead of creating a separate public charitable trust whose rules and expenditure are totally opaque, the prime minister should have renamed the PM National Relief Fund.
"This is important. Why not simply rename PMNRF as PM-CARES, given the PM's penchant for catchy acronyms, instead of creating a separate public charitable trust whose rules and expenditure are totally opaque? PMO India you owe the country an explanation for this highly unusual step," he wrote on Twitter.
Congress spokesperson Gaurav Vallabh also raised similar concerns that when Rs 3,800 crore were remaining unused in the PM National Relief Fund, what was the need to have a separate trust in the name of PM-CARES.
“When an amount of Rs 3,800 crore was still lying unused in PM National Relief Fund, what was the need for having another trust in PM-CARES.”Gaurav Vallabh, Congress spokesperson
He also asked whether PM-CARES was a trust and who were its trustees and whether the money donated to the fund would offer income tax relief to donors.
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