Congress attacks PM over new PMCARE trust

The Congress on Monday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the creation of the new PMCARE 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,"he asked.

"PM you owe the country an explanation for this highly unusual step," he said on Twitter.

Congress spokesperson Gaurav Vallabh said that when Rs 3800 crore were remaining unused in the PM National Relief Fund, what was the need to have a separate trust in the name of PMCARE.

"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-CARE,"he asked.

He also asked whether PMCARE was a trust and who were its trustees and whether the money given to the fund would give income tax relief to donors.