As the coronavirus pandemic spreads across India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day national lockdown on Tuesday evening appealing people to stay inside their homes.
On Saturday, PM Modi announced setting up of the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund to deal with the pandemic. No sooner did the PM made the announcement a number of private entities, industrialists, actors, sportsmen, government organizations and industrialists responded to the PM’s call and contributed to the fund.
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EurAsian Times brings you a comprehensive list of people who have donated to the PM-CARES fund.
Mukesh Ambani: The country’s richest man Mukesh Ambani has announced a plan that involves “prevention, mitigation and ongoing support.” His Reliance Foundation has set up India’s first dedicated COVID-19 center with 100 beds in Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai.
Reliance has also set up a fully equipped isolation facility in Lodhivali, Maharashtra and is offering free meals to people in various cities affected by the pandemic as well as free fuel for the transportation of COVID-19 patients and people under quarantine, as per the government list.
The Reliance Foundation Hospital has also been offered as a quarantine center and Reliance Life Sciences is importing more test kits. The company’s telecom arm Jio is doubling the data limits for its existing broadband users and waiving service charges for new customers to receive basic connectivity wherever it is geographically possible to do so.
Ratan Tata has pledged Rs 1,500 crore for combating coronavirus pandemic and also extended assistance to the government in their fight against novel Coronavirus.
Tata Sons, the holding firm of the Tata group companies, announced an additional Rs 1,000 crore support towards COVID-19 and related activities over and above Rs 500 crore pledged by Tata Trusts. Tata Sons and Tata Trusts have collectively pledged a total of INR 1,500 crore.
Anand Mahindra: Anand Mahindra highlighted the urgent need for more ventilators and pledged to find a way for the Mahindra Group’s manufacturing facilities to be used for producing them. He’s also offered the group’s hospitality arm Mahindra Holidays’ resorts as temporary care centers for COVID-19 patients.
Mahindra has set up a fund to help support small business owners and the self-employed to get through the tough times. The fund is said to include 100% of his salary over the coming months.
Anil Agarwal: Metals and mining magnate Anil Agarwal of Vedanta Resources has announced the setting up of a $13 million fund primarily targeted at three areas: benefiting daily wage workers, employees and contract workers; preventive health care and to help communities in and around Vedanta’s plants.
Vijay Shekar Sharma: Vijay Shekar Sharma, founder of digital payments platform Paytm, has pledged $650,000 for any medical innovation related to the coronavirus. Innovators, doctors and research teams can reach Paytm at covidcure@paytm.com.
Sridhar Vembu: Sridhar Vembu, founder of cloud services firm Zoho Corp., has announced a Small Business Emergency Subscription Assistance Program. The company’s plan is to offer three months fee waiver for software that small businesses are already using.
This will benefit 20,000 of its existing small business customers which have 25 or fewer employees. They will get Zoho Wallet credits which will be equivalent to three months of their bill. The small business owners can choose to use the wallet credits as he or she deems fit.
Byju Raveendran: Edtech billionaire Byju Raveendran is offering free access to his flagship Byju’s app, which offers math and science lessons suitable for children in grades 4-12 along with his Disney-BYJU’s Early Learn app that offers maths and English lessons for students in 1-3 grade.
Anupama Nadella: Pledging help to Telangana which happens to be her home state, Anupama Nadella wife of Satya Nadella has donated Rs 2 crore to the Chief Minister Welfare Fund to be used to help the poor during the lockdown period. A cheque for Rs 2 crore was handed over to Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao by Anupama’s father and former senior IAS officer KR Venugopal.
Anita Dongre: Anita Dongre, the founder of House of Dongre pledge a fund that will aid the small vendors, self-employed artisans, and partners associated with her brand function better. She contributed a medical fund of Rs 1.5 crore to support small vendors, self-employed artisans, and partners associated with her brand who may not have medical insurance or coverage.
PhonePe: Bengaluru-headquartered, Flipkart-owned PhonePe has launched a donation drive and said it aims to contribute up to Rs 100 crore to PM CARES Fund towards fighting coronavirus crisis.
Popular television host and actor Maniesh Paul pledged to donate a sum of Rs 20 lakh to PM Narendra Modi’s CARES fund to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Bhushan Kumar: Bhushan Kumar, who heads the Bollywood film studio T-Series, said he will be donating a sum of Rs 11 crores to PM-CARES Fund, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to combat health contingencies like the coronavirus
Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli: Actor Anushka Sharma and her cricketer husband Virat Kohli have announced their contribution to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s PM-CARES fund an initiative to provide relief during the coronavirus pandemic. The couple has jointly donated Rs 3 crore, as per industry sources.
Randeep Hooda Bollywood actor Randeep Hooda partnered with entrepreneur and philanthropist Jay Patel to contribute Rs 1 crore to the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) fund.
Kartik Aaryan Joining the film fraternity in donating graciously for the PM-Cares fund, actor Kartik Aaryan has pledged a sum of Rs 1 crore to do his bit for the worst sufferers of the countywide lockdown.
Bhumi Pednekar: Bhumi Pednekar had also donated a sum of Rs 30 lakh for the cause.
Indian Army: The Army’s Western Command has set up eight quarantine facilities for suspected coronavirus cases in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, an official statement said on Friday.
The nation’s defence establishment has pledged Rs 500 crore to the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM-CARES) fund.
The Army, Navy and the Indian Air Forces, as well as employees of the defence ministry, have decided to donate one day’s salary totalling around Rs 500 crore to the relief fund announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help fight the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Separately, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced that he will donate one month’s salary to the fund.
IAS Association: The IAS Association wrote that it has decided to contribute Rs 21 lakh to the PM-CARES Fund as its initial contribution to combat COVID-19. The Association added that all its members will also contribute at least a day’s salary.
Indian Railways: The Railways Ministry will donate Rs 151 crore to Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) to help in combating the novel coronavirus threat, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said on Sunday.
The Ministry of Railways has decided to make beds, stools and other furniture required for coronavirus patients. Railways made the announcement on Twitter on Monday. This comes after Railways announced that it had planned to transform it train coaches into isolation wards for patients infected with COVID-19. The Rail Ministry has also rendered all its hospitals across the country to serve central government employees as the coronavirus epidemic is on the rise in the country.
Member of Parliaments: Following Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s appeal, nearly three dozen MPs have allocated Rs 1 crore each from their MPLADS funds to local authorities to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.
The warmest contribution, however, came from a Twitter user named Syed Ataur Rehman who had donated Rs 501. Sharing a receipt of his donation, Rehman wrote, “Just a little donation… to fight Coronavirus”.
Esha Singh: Teenage shooter Esha Singh on Sunday pledged to donate Rs 30,000 to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, becoming, at 15, the country’s youngest sportsperson to make a monetary contribution.
Spoorthy: A two-and-a-half-year-old child Spoorthy in Villupuram in Tamil Nadu, who had been saving the money given to her by her parents for the last two-and-a-half years in a small ‘hundi’ (an earthen piggy bank) decided to donate her entire savings.
She got her father’s permission to break the ‘hundi’ and the parents counted the amount saved by the tiny-tot, which was around Rs 4,400. The child felt that the amount be divided equally and contributed to the Relief Funds of Prime Minister and the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palaniswami.
Akshay Kumar: Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar has pledged Rs 25 crore towards the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation (PM-CARES) Fund, for fighting COVID-19. The actor took to Twitter to announce the same.
This is that time when all that matters is the lives of our people. And we need to do anything and everything it takes. I pledge to contribute Rs 25 crores from my savings to @narendramodi Ji’s PM-CARES Fund. Let’s save lives, jaan hai toh jahaan hai.”” – Akshay Kumar.
Varun Dhawan: Actor Varun Dhawan also took to Twitter to pledge his support by contributing Rs 30 lakhs to the PM- CARES fund.
Shilpa Shetty: Actor Shilpa Shetty, along with her husband Raj Kundra, pledged to donate Rs 21 crores to PM-CARES.
Sabyasachi Mukherjee: Sabyasachi Mukherjee has pledged Rs 10 million (1 crore) to the PM’s National Relief Fund, and an additional Rs 5 million (50 lakh) to the West Bengal CM’s Relief Fund.
Kapil Sharma: Kapil Sharma announced that he was contributing a sum of Rs 50 lakh to the Prime Minister Relief Fund to help fight coronavirus in the country.
Rajinikanth: South superstar Rajinikanth was the first celebrity to come forward by donating Rs 50 lakh to help daily wage workers.
Prabhas: According to a statement, Prabhas donated an amount of Rs 4 crore for Covid-19 relief. Out of the donation amount, the Baahubali star pledged of Rs 3 crore to the Prime Minister’s relief fund and Rs 50 lakhs each to Chief Minister’s relief fund of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Chiranjeevi: Megastar Chiranjeevi put aside Rs 1 crore for the daily wage workers and those belonging to the lower-income groups in the Telugu film industry.
Nithiin: Nithiin was among one of the first actors to provide monetary help for the cause. He donated Rs 10 lakh each to both to the CM relief funds of the Telugu speaking states.
Mahesh: Mahesh said he has donated Rs 1 crore to the CM relief fund of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
Kalyan: Kalyan too announced on Twitter that he will donate Rs 1 crore to the PM relief fund.
BCCI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that it will donate Rs 51 crore to the PM-CARES Fund, to contribute towards strengthening the nation’s disaster management capacities and encourage research to combat COVID-19 and protect Indian citizens.
Ajinkya Rahane: Team India’s Test team vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane donated Rs 10 lakh to the Maharastra Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.
Gautam Gambhir: Cricketer-turned-politician and Lok Sabha MP Gautam Gambhir on Saturday released Rs 1 crore out of his MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) towards the relief efforts amid the coronavirus pandemic.
KCA: The Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) has decided to contribute Rs 50 lakh to the BCCI that has pledged Rs 51 crore to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund, to fight against the Covid-19 outbreak.
MCA: The Mumbai Cricket Asociation has already pledged Rs 50 lakh for the Maharashtra CM’s relief fund.
HCA: Hyderabad Cricket Association will be contributing ₹50 lakh to the PM-CARES fund to battle the dreaded coronavirus, association secretary R. Vijayanand informed the media.
Suresh Raina: Suresh Raina has pledged Rs 31 lakh to the PM-CARES Fund, and Rs 21 lakh to the UP CM’s Disaster Relief Fund.
