New Delhi [India], Mar 28 : With coronavirus posing severe health and economic ramifications for the country, the government has set up -- PM CARES Fund -- to deal with emergency or distress situation like that posed by COVID-19 and to provide relief to the affected people.
A PMO release said that COVID-19 has engulfed the entire world and posed serious challenges for the health and economic security of millions of people worldwide.
"In India too, the spread of coronavirus has been alarming and is posing severe health and economic ramifications for our country," the release said.
It said the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has been receiving spontaneous and innumerable requests for making generous donations to support the government in the wake of the emergency.
The release said that distress situations, whether natural or otherwise, demand expeditious and collective action for alleviating the suffering of those affected and mitigating damage to infrastructure.
It said that building capacities for quick emergency response and effective community resilience
has to be done in tandem with the improvement of infrastructure and institutional capacity and the use of new technology and advance research findings is also inseparable to such concerted action.
"Keeping in mind the need for having 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)' has been set up," the release said.
The Prime Minister is the chairman of the trust and its members include Defence Minister, Home Minister and Finance Minister.
The release said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always believed and showed in actions that public participation is the most effective way to mitigate any issue and the fund was also an example in that direction.
This fund will enable micro-donations as a result of which a large number of people will be able to contribute with the smallest of denominations.
The release said that citizens and orgsations can go to the website pmindia.gov.in and donate to PM CARES Fund using the following details:
Name of the Account: PM CARES; Account Number: 2121PM20202; IFSC Code: SBIN0000691, SWIFT Code: SBININBB104; Name of Bank and Branch: State Bank of India, New Delhi Main Branch; UPI ID: pmcares@sbi.
The release said that modes of payments available on the website include debit cards and credit cards, internet banking, UPI (BHIM, PhonePe, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, PayTM, Mobikwik, etc.), RTGS or NEFT.
It said the donations to this fund will be exempted from Income Tax under Section 80(G). People have been urged to generously donate to the fund.
( With inputs from ANI )