Goa, Aug. 19 -- Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke has questioned why the Rs.8,452-crore corpus of the PM CARES Fund is not being used to improve basic facilities in rural government schools. His remarks came after the fund's latest audited statements showed that its corpus rose 17.8% from Rs.7,173.03 crore in 2023-24 to Rs.8,452.07 crore in 2024-25.

Dipke said he had recently visited schools in villages and found several lacking basic facilities, including drinking water. He claimed authorities had cited a shortage of funds for the poor condition of some schools.

Highlighting the size of the PM CARES corpus, Dipke said a well-equipped model school could cost around Rs.8 crore. At that estimate, he said Rs.8,500 crore co...