NEW DELHI: The government has nominated veteran industrialist and Chairman emeritus of Tata Sons Ratan Tata as one of the trustees of PM Cares Fund, and inducted Sudha Murthy, former chairperson, of Infosys Foundation, into its advisory board.
The new trustees were part of a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday. The PM took stock of initiatives undertaken with the help of the PM CARES Fund. During the meeting, it was discussed that PM CARES has a larger vision of “effectively responding to emergency and distress situations, not only through relief assistance but also taking mitigation measures and capacity building”.
A presentation was also made on the various initiatives undertaken with the help of the PM CARES Fund, including the Children scheme which is supporting 4,345 children. Apart from Ratan Tata, former Supreme Court judge Justice KT Thomas and former Member of Parliament Kariya Munda were also nominated as the trustees of the Fund.
Others nominated to be part of the advisory board include former Comptroller and Auditor General of India Rajiv Mehrishi and Anand Shah, co-founder of Teach or India and former CEO of Indicorps and Piramal Foundation.
The PM CARES Fund collected Rs 7,014 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 3,076 crore in 2019-20. Till 2020-21, nearly Rs 4,000 crore has been disbursed for procurement of Covid-19 vaccines, ventilators, oxygen cylinders, etc. Contributions to PM CARES Fund by companies are eligible to be considered CSR spending.