New Delhi: The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations or PM CARES Fund will not be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.
A news channel quoting CBI officials said that since the fund is based on the donations of individuals and organizations, “we do not have any right to audit the charitable organizations.”
The PM CARES was formed on 28 March with Narendra Modi as its chairperson and senior cabinet members as trustees. A senior official in the CAG said: “Unless the trustees ask us to audit, we will not audit the accounts.”
According to several reports the government sources have said that the PM CARES Fund will be audited by independent auditors who will be appointed by the trustees (Will they be independent auditors, is not yet clear).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown on 24 March because of which, many poor migrant workers came on streets and some of them tried to reach their home towns by walking long distances.
On 24 April, the Ministry of Home Affairs has released guidelines for relief in lockdown.
According to a government press release, in rural areas, all shops except those in shopping malls are allowed to open and in urban areas, all standalone shops, neighboring shops and shops in residential complexes are allowed to open whereas shops in markets complexes will be shut till May 3.
On 26 April the MHA again released some more guidelines in which it restricted the functioning of restaurants and barber shops.
The Central government decided to cut back hike in dearness allowance of government employees and pensioners on which former PM, Manmohan Singh said that he did not think that at this “stage such cuts were necessary.”
Rahul Gandhi also hit back at the government. He said: “I see the problem is that you are building your central vista ( mega project to renovate Lutyens’ Delhi) at the same time. So either you are not sort of doing this extraneous expenditure. You are taking money from the middle class, not giving money to the poor people and spending it on central vista.”