PM CARES Fund set up

The PM CARES Fund was set up for collecting voluntary contributions for providing relief to those affected by COVID-19.

About the Fund

The PM CARES (Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation) Fund was set up by the government under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister. It is a public charitable trust which aims to use voluntary public donations to tackle the COVID-19 situation.

Fake UPI ID Scam

The donations to the Fund can be made via UPI- providing an easy solution of digital payment. However, scamsters have taken advantage of the scheme and have been floating a fake UPI ID (pmcare@sbi) on social media to steal money. The actual UPI ID is pmcares@sbi according to PIB.

UPI

UPI or Unified Payment Interface is used to make the digital payments simpler by enabling the direct money transfer between the parties using only the UPI ID. Each ID is linked to a particular account. Hence this requires careful double checking before the money transfer is done.