PM CARES corpus rises to Rs 8,452 crore, 93% parked in fixed deposits; FD interest matches donation

The PM CARES Fund had a closing balance of Rs 8,452.06 crore at the end of financial year 2024-25, with nearly 93 per cent of the amount held in fixed deposits, even as expenditure from the fund during the year stood at Rs 87.85 lakh, according to its latest audited financial statement.

The accounts, relating to the year ended March 31, 2025, were signed in August 2026, more than a year after the financial year closed. The figures show that the fund's accumulated corpus continued to generate substantial interest income while fresh donations remained significant. Of the Rs 8,452.06 crore available at the end of 2024-25, Rs 7,846.65 crore was held in fixed deposits, while Rs 605.41 crore remained in savings bank accounts. The fund had begun the financial year with around Rs 7,173 crore in its bank accounts.

Interest rivals donations

During 2024-25, PM CARES received Rs 479.04 crore in domestic voluntary contributions. Foreign contributions amounted to Rs 92.83 lakh, taking fresh donations during the year to roughly Rs 480 crore.

At the same time, the existing corpus generated Rs 469.37 crore as interest on fixed deposits and Rs 5.77 crore from savings bank accounts. Combined interest earnings therefore came to around Rs 475 crore — almost matching the amount received through fresh contributions during the year.

The accounts also record Rs 13.49 lakh as refund of tax deducted at source on interest from fixed deposits. The size of the fixed-deposit portfolio increased substantially during the year. PM CARES entered 2024-25 with Rs 6,641.56 crore in fixed deposits. By the end of the financial year, this had risen by about Rs 1,205 crore to Rs 7,846.65 crore.

Rs 87.85 lakh spent

Against the corpus of more than Rs 8,450 crore, total payments recorded during 2024-25 stood at Rs 87.85 lakh.

Almost the entire expenditure — Rs 87.84 lakh — was towards the PM CARES for Children Scheme. The remaining expenditure listed in the statement was Rs 451 towards bank and SMS charges.

The scheme was introduced for children who lost both parents, a surviving parent, legal guardian or adoptive parents to Covid-19. PM CARES has previously financed several pandemic-related initiatives, including procurement of medical equipment and support for healthcare infrastructure.

The limited expenditure during 2024-25 has, however, prompted fresh questions from critics about the utilisation of a fund established specifically to respond to emergencies and distress situations. The Congress also attacked the government on Tuesday over the level of spending reported in the latest accounts.

Rs 324 crore returned

Another significant entry in the latest statement is Rs 324.66 crore received as refunds from implementing agencies.

The amount is considerably higher than the Rs 84.31 crore recorded under the same category in the preceding financial year. However, the publicly available one-page financial statement does not identify the agencies involved or explain the projects against which the funds had originally been released and subsequently returned.

The entry refers to an accompanying note in the accounts. The statement indicates that Notes 1 to 16 form part of the financial statements, but questions have been raised because those explanatory notes were not made available alongside the document cited in reports on the disclosure.

Transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj questioned both the scale of the refunds and the absence of additional information explaining why the money had been returned.

Accounts released later

The timing of the disclosure has also attracted attention. The accounts cover April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, but bear signatures dated August 6 and August 7, 2026 — roughly 16 months after the end of the financial year.

The latest figures consequently provide a picture of the fund's finances as they stood in March 2025 rather than its current balance in August 2026.

The accounts show that the corpus increased from around Rs 7,173 crore at the beginning of 2024-25 to Rs 8,452.06 crore at the end, helped by donations, interest income and refunds from implementing agencies.

Created during Covid

The Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund, or PM CARES Fund, was established in March 2020 as India confronted the Covid-19 pandemic. It was constituted as a public charitable trust, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi serving as its ex-officio chairman. The Defence Minister, Home Minister and Finance Minister are ex-officio trustees.

According to its stated objectives, PM CARES is intended to provide assistance during emergencies or distress situations, including public-health emergencies and natural or man-made disasters. Its mandate includes supporting healthcare and pharmaceutical infrastructure, financing research and providing financial assistance to affected people.

Transparency debate continues

Since its establishment, PM CARES has been at the centre of a continuing debate over transparency and institutional oversight. Questions have been raised over why a separate fund was required when mechanisms such as the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund and the National Disaster Response Fund already existed.

Critics have also sought greater disclosure of donations, expenditure and project-level utilisation, while questioning the fund's position outside the ambit of routine Comptroller and Auditor General audit and the Right to Information framework. The Centre has maintained that PM CARES is a public charitable trust funded through voluntary contributions and does not receive budgetary support or government money. It has also maintained that the trust is not a “public authority” for the purposes of the Right to Information Act.

The latest financial statement is likely to renew that debate because of the contrast between the fund's sizeable accumulated balance and expenditure during 2024-25.

The figures show that five years after PM CARES was created at the height of the pandemic, nearly Rs 7,847 crore of its Rs 8,452-crore closing balance was held in fixed deposits as of March 31, 2025. Meanwhile, the corpus itself had reached a scale where the interest generated during the year was almost equal to the fresh donations flowing into the fund.