The PM CARES Fund, established by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, had a corpus of Rs 8,452 crore as of March 2025, according to its latest audit statement published on the fund’s official website. Nearly 93% of the corpus was held in fixed deposits, while the interest earned during 2024-25 was almost equal to the fresh donations received during the year.
Of the Rs 8,452 crore balance on March 31, 2025, Rs 7,846.65 crore, or about 93%, was invested in fixed deposits. The remaining amount was maintained in savings accounts with scheduled banks.
The Fund spent just Rs 87.85 lakh during the financial year, the audit statement showed.
The disclosure came more than a year after the financial year ended on March 31, 2025. The accounts were audited and signed during the first week of August 2026.
According to the PM CARES website, the fund was created as a public charitable trust with the primary purpose of responding to emergencies and distress situations and providing relief to those affected. Its objectives include responding to public health emergencies and natural or man-made disasters, strengthening healthcare infrastructure, supporting research and extending financial assistance to affected individuals.
The latest statement also records more than Rs 324 crore in refunds from implementing agencies, including organisations such as DRDO and NHAI. However, the one-page statement does not specify which agencies returned the money, the reasons for the refunds or the projects for which the funds had initially been released.
The limited expenditure, substantial funds kept in bank deposits, delay in publishing the accounts and lack of details about certain entries have prompted questions from activists, journalists and chartered accountants.
The PM CARES Fund has faced transparency-related criticism since its creation in 2020. Most recently, the Cockroach Janta Party called for an inquiry into the Fund while responding to an activist who had sought details about the funding of CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke. In January, then Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin had also alleged that the Fund collected nearly Rs 30,000 crore during the pandemic but lacked transparency over its utilisation.
HOW THE PM CARES CORPUS GREW
The PM CARES Fund began 2024-25 with Rs 7,173 crore in its bank accounts. Of that amount, Rs 6,641.56 crore was invested in fixed deposits and Rs 531.46 crore was kept in savings accounts.
During the year, the Fund received Rs 479.04 crore in domestic donations and Rs 92.83 lakh from overseas contributions, taking total fresh donations to roughly Rs 480 crore.
At the same time, its existing corpus generated significant interest income. Fixed deposits earned Rs 469.37 crore in interest, while savings accounts generated another Rs 5.77 crore. Combined interest income was therefore around Rs 475 crore.
As a result, the interest earned during the year was nearly equivalent to the fresh domestic donations received by the Fund.
The Fund also received Rs 13.49 lakh as a refund of tax deducted at source on fixed-deposit interest.
By March 31, 2025, the overall balance had risen from Rs 7,173 crore to Rs 8,452 crore. The amount kept in fixed deposits increased by around Rs 1,205 crore during the year, rising from Rs 6,641.56 crore at the beginning of the period to Rs 7,846.65 crore.
RS 8,452 CRORE IN THE BANK, JUST RS 87.85 LAKH SPENT
Despite the growth in its corpus, the PM CARES Fund recorded very limited expenditure during 2024-25.
The audit statement shows total payments of Rs 87.85 lakh. Almost the entire amount, Rs 87.84 lakh, was spent under the PM CARES for Children Scheme. The only other expenditure listed was Rs 451 towards bank and SMS charges.
The Fund consequently ended the financial year with Rs 8,452.06 crore. Of this, Rs 7,846.65 crore was in fixed deposits and Rs 605.41 crore remained in savings accounts.
Transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj questioned why such a large corpus was being kept largely unused despite the Fund’s stated purpose of providing assistance during emergencies.
“A fund set up to help citizens during disasters, which has accumulated thousands of crores (including from foreign sources), is shrouded in secrecy,” Bhardwaj wrote on X.
QUESTIONS OVER THE RS 324 CRORE REFUND
The Rs 324.66 crore listed as “Refund from Implementing Agencies” is another entry that has attracted scrutiny.
The amount is almost four times the Rs 84.31 crore that implementing agencies returned during the previous financial year. Bhardwaj questioned which agencies had returned the money, why the funds were refunded and what the original payments had been intended for.
She also raised the possibility of whether any refunds could have been connected to defective equipment, though the available statement does not provide such details.
The entry refers to “Note 11”, while the statement mentions accompanying notes numbered 1 to 16. Bhardwaj questioned why those detailed notes had not been uploaded alongside the one-page statement, arguing that they could provide greater clarity about the financial entries.
QUESTIONS OVER DELAY IN RELEASING ACCOUNTS
The latest accounts relate to the financial year that ended on March 31, 2025, but the statement bears signatures dated August 6 and 7, 2026 — roughly 16 months after the financial year concluded.
Pune-based Chartered Accountant Atul Modani claimed that the audits for FY2023-24 and FY2024-25 were conducted together after a gap of nearly two years. He also pointed out that the audited statement uploaded online did not contain a Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN), suggesting this may have been an oversight that needs correction.
Chartered Accountant Ruchita Vaghani also questioned the significant difference between the amount received by the Fund and the amount spent during the financial year.
WHY PM CARES FACED CONTROVERSY AFTER ITS LAUNCH
The PM CARES Fund came under scrutiny soon after its launch in March 2020. Critics questioned why a new fund was required when the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) and the PM National Relief Fund were already in existence.
Activists and experts also questioned why PM CARES was not subject to a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit and scrutiny under the Right to Information Act.
The Narendra Modi government maintained that PM CARES is a public charitable trust funded through voluntary contributions rather than budgetary or government funds. It also argued that the Fund does not qualify as a “public authority” under the RTI Act.
In August 2020, the Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking the transfer of PM CARES funds to the NDRF, observing that the two were separate funds with different objectives. The court said donations to PM CARES could not be directed to the NDRF.
The court also noted that while the NDRF is audited by the CAG, PM CARES, as a public charitable trust, was not required to undergo a CAG audit on that basis.
The latest financial disclosure has consequently renewed attention on both the size of the PM CARES corpus and its limited expenditure. Five years after its creation during the Covid-19 crisis, almost Rs 7,847 crore of its Rs 8,452-crore balance was held in fixed deposits at the end of 2024-25, with the interest generated during the year nearly matching the donations received.
