These celebrities did not pledge such huge amounts in donations in the fight against COVID-19 - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 5, 2021
Set of social media posts claiming that Tollywood film actor Pawan Kalyan, cricketers MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, AB De Villiers, and Hardik Pandya have donated Rs. 100, 800, 31.5, 47.5 & 98.7 crores to PM Care Funds respectively to purchase oxygen cylinders, are going viral. Let’s fact-check these claims.
Claim: Huge amounts in donation pledged by Pawan Kalyan, Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya & AB De Villiers to purchase oxygen cylinders.
Fact: There are no recent news reports or official announcements from these individuals pledging such huge amounts in donations. Everyone mentioned in the posts has contributed their part by donating some amount or fulfilling certain needs. However, the contributions are not as huge as is being claimed in these posts. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Pawan Kalyan:
In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, earlier in March 2020,  Pawan Kalyan has donated Rs. 1 crore to PM care funds and Rs. 50 lakhs each to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Chief Minister Relief Funds. The actor himself announced this through his official Twitter account.
I will be donating Rs.1 crore to PM relief fund to support our https://t.co/83OmZ9biYX Sri @narendramodi ji,in turbulent times like this. His exemplary and inspiring leadership would truly bring  our country from this Corona pandemic.
Following this donation, there are no such similar announcements made by the actor in recent times. If at all he made such a huge donation of Rs. 100 crores, the entire media would have reported it. However, we could not find any news report stating that Pawan Kalyan has donated Rs. 100 crores to PM Care Funds. There is no such announcement made by Pawan Kalyan on his official social media accounts (here & here) also.
MS Dhoni:
Google search with keywords yielded multiple 2020 news articles which reported Dhoni’s one lakh contribution to a charitable trust in order to battle the corona pandemic. However, we could not find any reports stating that Dhoni has contributed Rs. 800 crores to deal with the oxygen crisis the country is facing. Search on his official social media accounts did not yield any such announcements.
Rohit Sharma:
Earlier in 2020, Rohit Sharma has donated Rs. 80 lakhs as his part in the fight against corona. Out of which Rs. 45 lakhs were donated to PM Cares Fund, Rs.25 lakhs to CM Relief Fund, and Rs. 5 lakhs each to two NGOs.
We need our country back on feet & the onus is on us. I’ve done my bit to donate 45lakhs to #PMCaresFunds, 25lakhs to #CMReliefFund Maharashtra, 5lakhs to @FeedingIndia and 5lakhs to #WelfareOfStrayDogs.Let’s get behind our leaders and support them @narendramodi @CMOMaharashtra
Following this, there are no such announcements made by Rohit Sharma, and there are no news reports available in this regard. There is no such information available on Rohit Sharma’s official social media accounts.
AB De Villiers:
As per a Times Now report, AB De Villiers and Virat Kohli would donate funds generated by auctioning memorabilia from IPL 2016 both in India & South Africa in the fight against coronavirus pandemic.
According to this article, Royal Challengers Bangalore, the IPL franchise ABD is part of has also promised financial assistance for infrastructure related to oxygen support in India’s fight against COVID-19. However, the article did not mention the quantum of the assistance. Apart from this contribution, we could not find any information stating that ABD donated Rs. 47.5 crores to India in the fight against coronavirus pandemic.
Hardik Pandya:
Google search with keywords yielded multiple news articles which reported the Pandya brothers’ recent announcement of donating 200 oxygen concentrators to hospitals in rural India in the fight against COVID-19.
However, except for the above-mentioned donations, we could not find any news article or social media posts from the Pandya brothers pledging assistance.
If at all these cricketers made such huge amounts of contributions, the entire media would have reported them. No such reports in this regard imply that these viral claims of contributions are not true. Earlier FACTLY has debunked similar claims regarding Virat Kohli and Dhoni.
In view of few foreign cricketers pledging financial assistance in India’s fight against COVID-19, misleading posts like these are being shared on social media platforms.
To sum it up, these celebrities did not pledge such huge amounts in donations in the fight against COVID-19.