In a significant development the Centre has given the green light to individual contributions to the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF). While the NDRF was set up under the Disaster Management Act in 2005, there was no provision for individuals to contribute to the disaster relief fund despite the Act clearly mentioning this.

The latest development is significant as it comes at a time when several questions have been raised including cases in various courts, among them the Supreme Court, challenging the opaqueness of the PM CARES fund set up in March to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has maintained that the fund cannot be audited by the CAG and is not under the RTI.

For more on the significance and issues surrounding the NDRF, GoNews' Sidharth Pandey spoke to transparency campaigner Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd) and Brigadier VK Dutta (retd), former Secretary, DCMG (Disaster Management)