PM CARES Fund Helps Procure 50,000 Ventilators In Record Time, Plugging Gaps in PMNRF, Says BlueKraft CEO

The PM CARES fund has been used to procure 50,000 ventilators for the country which are being made available to the hospitals from Monday, BlueKraft CEO Akhilesh Mishra wrote on Twitter. On May 13, Rs 2,000 crore were released from the fund in order to purchase the ventilators.

Citing a study by the Center for Disease Dynamics Economics and Policy (CDDEP), Mishra said a total of 47,000 ventilator facilities had been made available in public and private hospitals in the country since the last 70 years. "PM CARES will add 50,000 in one go," he wrote.

Defending the need for the creation of a separate fund, Mishra said, "The PMNRF usage evolved into primarily helping individuals/families in distress due to natural calamity etc. There is no provision in the PMNRF to handle in an organised way situations like that posed by COVID-19. PM CARES plugs that gap."

The PM CARES fund is different from the PMNRF as it supports relief or assistance to a public health emergency by upgradation of healthcare or pharmaceutical facilities, other infrastructure, funding relevant research, he said.

Further explaining the difference, he wrote, the board of PMNRF is constituted of the prime minister, president of Congress party and representative of private industries. Whereas, the board of PM CARES includes the prime minister, finance minister, home minister, defence minister and all ex-officio members.

He questioned the inclusion of the Congress president in the PM National Relief Fund board.

Calling the creation of the PMNRF under Congress a scandal, he wrote, "Do you know who the auditors of PMNRF, appointed under Congress, were - Ms. Thakur, Vaidyanath Aiyar & Company. Founder of this firm, Rameshwar Thakur, was a lifelong committed Congress politician."

Mishra further questioned the intentions of the PMNRF as he stated that the Congress president has a lifelong membership to the board and the auditor is a lifelong Congress politician. "Thus the noise now by Sonia Gandhi establishment as this cozy set up is changed," he said.

"When the opportunity, as provisioned under Companies Act, came to change the auditors of PMNRF, the Modi government did it at end of FY 2017-18 and appointed M/s SARC & Associates as auditors of PMNRF. Same firm is now appointed to audit PMCARES as well," Mishra said.

He further said that an amount of Rs 1,000 crore will be used for the welfare of the migrants, who have been the worst hit by the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The government has also dedicated Rs 100 crore from the fund to the development of vaccine against the disease.