Dipke Demands Rs 8,452 Crore PM CARES Corpus For Rural Schools
Dipke argued that the Rs 8,452 crore “that is not being used at all” could be used for children who need their government schools to function.
Mumbai: Questioning the utilisation of the PM CARES Fund, Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider using its corpus to improve school education infrastructure in rural areas across India.
“Use PM CARES Fund for schools! Imagine how many rural schools could have been improved with ₹8,452 crore of PM CARES,” Dipke said in a video message shared on social media.
His statement came a day after government documents revealed that the PM CARES Fund corpus has risen to a record ₹8,452 crore in 2024-25 from ₹7,173 crore in 2023-24. However, just less than one per cent of the total funds have been spent on payments.
Dipke argued that the Rs 8,452 crore “that is not being used at all” could be used for children who need their government schools to function. “A report came out that there is almost ₹8,500 crore in the PM CARES Fund which is not being used anywhere. It’s not being used at all,” he said in a video.
The corpus of the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund rose 17.8% from ₹7,173.03 crore in 2023-24 to ₹8,452.07 crore in 2024-25, according to its audited statements released on Monday.
“So on one hand, it is being said that there are no funds for schools and on the other hand, ₹8,500 crore is lying in the PM CARES Fund,” he said.
The CJP founder said the PM CARES Fund can be used to improve infrastructure in rural schools and build more than 1,000 new high-tech schools. He questioned why the funds could not be utilised to address infrastructure deficiencies in government schools, claiming that children across the country are demanding better educational facilities and good roads to their schools, benches and drinking water in their schools.
“Why are we not utilising the PM CARES Fund to improve school education infrastructure?” Dipke asked, arguing that the corpus could potentially have a significant impact on government schools in both rural and urban areas.
Dipke said he had been visiting schools in villages over the past few days and found their condition ‘very bad.’ He said children in several schools were struggling to access basic facilities, including drinking water.
“They are struggling to get drinking water in schools. So why are we not using this money for those children’s schools? Why is this money not being used to build new schools?” he added.