Question of Restoring faith in the Government during COVID 19
by Dr Bhabani Sonowal and Pooja Raghav
Transparency and accountability are the keys to good governance. In other words, good governance without transparency and accountability is a smokescreen. Every citizen living in a democratic country has the fundamental right to inquire about the transparency and accountability of the government that governs the country. If the ruling government is preventing people from enjoying this very right, the citizens have the constitutional right to question and protest against it.
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| PM Modi In West Bengal to review the cyclone situation in the state in last week of May |
“Transparency and accountability are not merely technical questions of institutional design. They are outcomes of democratizing processes which is driven not only by committed leadership, but also by the participation of, and dissent among, groups and interests in society—processes that are most effective when sustained and restrained by legitimate, effective institutions”.The genuine practice of transparency and accountability in any governing systems are not only proving its responsiveness towards the citizens but also bridges confidence and faith between the citizens and the administrative model of the country.
However, we have a different story in India. The PM-CAREsFund established to support the needy people during the Covid-19 pandemic in India have been questioned by many independent parties. To have a dedicated “national fund with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide relief to the affected, a public charitable trust under the name of ‘Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund’ (PM-CAREs Fund)’” was set up by Prime Minister Modi. The composition of which includes Prime Minister as the ex-officio Chairman, Minister of Defence, Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Finance, Government of India are ex-officio Trustees of the Fund. Evidently as mentioned above the aims and objectives to set up the charitable trust was “to meet every kind of emergencies that come across during the pandemic situation including assistance, including the creation or up-gradation of healthcare or pharmaceutical facilities, other necessary infrastructure, funding relevant research or any other type of support”.
Now the question is when there is an existing PM National Relief Fund(PMNRF) which was set up in January 1948 with the same objectives as (PM- CAREs FUND) to accept public contributions for the assistance during national emergencies which includes natural calamities and support medical expenses for victims and others, why do we need a new charitable trust fund? The PMNRF also comprises of Prime Minister as the Chairman and is assisted by Officers/Staff on an honorary basis. According to the sources, the PMNRF was maintaining an unspent balance of ₹3,800 crores as of December 16, 2019. If there was unspent balance in this fund, what was the need of creating another PM-CAREsFund?
Consequently, several questions were raised by many opposition party members, RTI activists and academicians over lack of efficiency, accountability and transparency of PM-CAREs Fund. According to the statement issued by the Prime Minister office in mid-May, Rs 3,100 Crore from the PM-CAREs Fund will be allocated for fight against COVID-19. If the fund has been promised to assist the migrant workers, then, why the streets and highways of India have witnessed the woes of fellow citizens; why do they have borne the brunt of such tragedy of losing their loved ones on railway tracks? As rightly pointed by Ramachandra Guha, eminent historian and economist,the current migrant woe in India is the ‘greatest man-made tragedy’ since Partition in 1947. The citizens walking from state to another without any substantive assistance and the medical facilities that suffer from lack of adequate medicines are letting us to sadly imaging that the people in the country are being subjected like the white rats with red eyes in the biological laboratory. This is the harvest of the unplanned unscrupulous activities of the government. This tragic situation could have been easily prevented if the right plan had been put in place at the right time.
Not only does the government lacking strategic plans to address the plights of the migrant workers but also it is deliberately ignoring to maintain transparency and accountability of the fund collected under the trust of PM CAREs Fund. Surprisingly, both PMNRF and PM- CAREs Funds are not allowed to be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India as the Fund is not directly availed from the Consolidated Fund of India. The Funds are solely audited by an independent body at the discretion of the Chairman (Prime Minister). Therefore independent statistics of the fund are not available for the public.
Unfortunately, it is evident from the recent activity of the Prime Minister’sOffice (PMO) that the citizen’s right to information has been denied by rejecting an RTI application expecting details of the PM-CAREsFund. The Prime Minister’s office clearly stated in the reply that the PM-CAREs Fund is ‘Not a Public Authority’ and hence does not fall under the purview of Right to Information Act, 2005 . Though the PMO denied the fund to be public fund, the Composition of the Trust and usage of the national emblem, government domain name, everything qualifies it to be a ‘Public Authority’ according to one of the previous RTI applications.
By denying the access of information and denying the status of ‘Public Authority’ to the PM-CAREs Fund the government has not only denied the citizens right to information but also is veiling transparency and accountability of the PM-CAREs Fund. In this deteriorating context it is fair to think that the values of good governance have been jeopardised, and the future of our beloved republic is in an abysmal. This will generate nothing but social fear. Let’s recall the common political thought at all times, “when the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Transparency and accountability are the assets of good governance and there is no denying the fact that to have good governance every citizen should be well informed with the government activities and get an opportunity to participate as well. The greater the access of information provided to the citizen, the greater the responsiveness of government to the community be proved.
When the humanity is gripped with uncertainty by the pandemic, it is not only the responsibility of the government to act efficiently but also a moral duty to protect the beauty of the largest democracy in the world.
Dr Bhabani Sonowal, PhD, earned her doctorate from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. She is an Assistant Professor at Vellore Institute of Technology in Chennai.
Pooja Raghav, Assistant Professor at Vellore Institute of Technology in Chennai while pursuing her doctorate in Political Science
References:
- Michael Johnston Department of Political Science, Colgate University
- https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/about-pm-cares-fund
- https://pmnrf.gov.in/en/about
- https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/migrant-woes-greatest-manmade-tragedy-in-india-since-partition-ramchandra-guha/article31663219.ece
- https://thewire.in/government/pm-cares-fund-not-a-public-authority-rti-act-pmo
- https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/coronavirus-pm-cares-is-not-a-public-authority-under-rti-act-pmo/article31712146.ece
- https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/when-government-fears-people-there-liberty-spurious-quotation
- Dr. Sheila Rai , Transparency and Accountability in Governance and Right to Information in India.
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