The total voluntary contribution to the PM CARES Fund fell to Rs 912 crore in the fiscal year 2022-23, its lowest since the public charitable trust was created in March 2020 following the COVID-19 outbreak.

A study of the audited statements on the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund website shows that the voluntary contribution peaked at Rs 7,184 crore in 2020-21 and then fell to Rs 1,938 crore in 2021-22, before declining further in 2022-23 as the Covid threat receded after 2021.

The fiscal 2022-23 is the last year for which the statement is available on the website.

Foreign contribution has seen a sharper decline, registering a high of Rs 495 crore in 2020-21, before falling to Rs 40 crore and Rs 2.57 crore in the next two years.

The total expenditure in 2022-23 was around Rs 439 crore, with Rs 346 crore of it used by the "PM Cares for Children", a government initiative to support children who lost both of their parents, legal guardians or surviving parents to the Covid pandemic.

An amount of nearly Rs 92 crore was spent on the procurement of oxygen concentrators, according to the statement.

The Narendra Modi government had set up the PM CARES Fund with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like the one posed by the Covid pandemic, and to provide relief to the affected. It was registered as a public charitable trust.

The prime minister is the ex-officio chairman of the body and the fund consists entirely of voluntary contributions and does not get any budgetary support.

The fund has been used over the years to boost emergency care, including for setting up oxygen plants and purchasing ventilators in hospitals run by the central and state governments as part of the larger exercise to meet the challenges posed by the pandemic.

In 2021-22, an amount of Rs 1,703 crore was spent on pressure-swing adsorption oxygen plants, besides spending Rs 835 crore on ventilators, out of a total expenditure of nearly Rs 1,938 crore.

The closing balance of the fund at the end of the 2022-23 fiscal was more than Rs 6,283 crore.

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