-TheWire.in Details on this fund and on the decision-making process behind the lockdown, which the PMO has decided not to disclose, should have been made public without waiting for RTI requests. The Prime Minister’s Office must have deliberately ignored the will that the parliament had expressed in the RTI Act, and the spirit of the the Rules and Office Memoranda (OM) issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) when it...
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PM CARES Fund Won't Be Checked By Government's Auditor, Say Sources -Sunil Prabhu
-NDTV The Prime Minister's National Relief Fund (PMNRF), which was set up in 1948, is not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) either. New Delhi: The Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations or PM CARES Fund, formed amid the coronavirus crisis to be a war chest for national crises, will not be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), sources told NDTV...
More »Coronavirus: PM-CARES donations cut from government staff salaries -Priscilla Jebaraj, Vijaita Singh & Manojit Saha
-The Hindu Circulars were sent to all departments. Employees from a number of government departments and agencies have donated a day’s salary toward the PM-CARES fund. While the donations, meant for COVID-19 relief, were said to be “voluntary”, government circulars show that the deductions were made directly from salaries. Those unwilling to donate were asked to submit their refusal in writing. Please click here to read more. ...
More »India must enhance fiscal support for COVID-19 relief and rebuilding -Jonathan Coutinho and Amit Basole
-The Hindu The trend across developing countries is to give State governments as much discretion as possible India urgently needs to increase fiscal support for COVID-19 relief and rebuilding. Among comparable developing countries with similar Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, India has spent the least as a share of its GDP. While the Central government has announced measures amounting to 0.8% of GDP, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that State-level relief...
More »Recent reports predict gloomy days ahead for the overall economy
Most reports and studies by official agencies, international think tanks and private entities indicate the cataclysmic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy and society. They anticipate that lockdowns imposed by various countries across the globe to reduce the exponential diffusion of COVID-19 (i.e. for flattening the curve by social distancing and quarantines) would adversely affect economic growth and disrupt supply chains in most sectors, on top of causing...
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