India Today ‘journalist’ Rajdeep Sardesai shared a misleading post on his X account on Tuesday, 18th August, while commenting on the latest financial figures of the PM CARES Fund.
Sharing a report about the fund’s balance, Sardesai wrote: “INTERESTING: Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund, which was set up in March 2020 during COVID to deal with emergency/distress situations, has accumulated a corpus of ₹8,452 crore by the end of FY 2024-25, but just 87 lakh was spent, as per audit reports released. Still, no information on the source of funds.”
INTERESTING: Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund, which was set up in March 2020 during COVID to deal with emergency/distress situations, has accumulated a corpus of Rs 8,452 crore by end of FY 2024-25, but just Rs 87 lakh was…
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) August 18, 2026
The post, however, gives an incomplete picture of the ₹87 lakh figure.
Hours after floating the insinuation that somehow the PM CARES Fund spent only Rs 87 lakh in six years, and receiving flak for his misleading claims, Rajdeep Sardesai published a factually aligned breakdown of the Fund’s annual expenditure since its inception.
What does the ₹87 lakh figure actually mean?
Sardesai’s post can give the impression that the PM CARES Fund has spent only ₹87 lakh in total since it was created in March 2020. That is not what the figure represents. The ₹87 lakh refers to expenditure during FY 2024-25, rather than the total amount spent by the fund since its creation. The latest financial data shows the fund’s balance at around ₹8,452 crore at the end of the financial year.
Therefore, presenting ₹87 lakh without clearly stating that it pertains specifically to FY 2024-25 creates a misleading impression of the fund’s overall spending.
PM CARES is an emergency fund
The PM CARES Fund was created in March 2020 to deal with emergencies and distress situations, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is meant to act as a reserve that can be used when major national crises require financial intervention, rather than functioning like an ATM for routine government spending.
The fund’s official FAQ also states that an independent auditor audits its accounts.
Thus, while questions about the fund’s finances and transparency can certainly be debated, the ₹87 lakh figure needs to be presented in its correct context: it represents expenditure for FY 2024-25, not the total expenditure since PM CARES was established.
