Opp raps Govt for monetising PSUs
The Government ambitious plan to raise `6 lakh crore by monetising public sector assets across several key sectors over the next four years has raised a major controversy. Opposition parties, including the Congress, on Tuesday questioned the Government’s move and said it would help in creating monopoly of some business tycoons over several sectors.
Addressing a Press conference, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi came down hard on the Centre’s National Monetisation Pipeline announced a day earlier. He said the move was aimed at helping “2-3 private players” and also countered the BJP’s favoured allegation that there had been no development in India under the Congress.
The Trinamool Congress and the Left parties and trade unions too urged the Government to stop selling public assets at a song to crony capitalists and said National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) is nothing but a loot and sale of India by the Modi Government.
The CPI(M) polit bureau urged people to protest and resist the “loot of national assets”. The TMC lashed out at the National Monetisation Pipeline calling it a “dangerous bid” by the “bankrupt” Modi Government to raise money by gradually handing over sectors like rail, road, airport, mining to the corporates.
TMC deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Sukhendu Sekhar Roy told a Press meet at Kolkatta that the National Monetisation Pipeline is an “unprecedented anti-people move” which did not figure in the BJP election manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
There had neither been any discussion in Parliament about the move, alleged Roy, who is also TMC chief whip in the Rajya Sabha.
Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government over the monetisation plan, Rahul said only a few businesses will be left” as a result of it and that employment opportunities would decline.
“I want to tell the youth what the country is selling and which asset is going to whom,” Rahul said listing out the various infrastructure areas that will be monetised according to him.
“This is being sold 2 to 3 private players...I spoke on corona all of you laughed and you saw, and I am saying this that this will have a huge impact on the future of this country,” he said.
The Rs 6 lakh crore monetisation plan was unveiled by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman aimed at “unlocking value” by involving private companies across infrastructure sectors. Up to 25 airports, 40 railway stations, and 15 railway stadiums, among other installations, have been identified to get private investments.
Citing examples like assets in “railways, Rs 1.5 lakh crore”, Rahul warned the sector’s employees about what such a move potentially means for them. Similarly, he emphasised “warehousing, Rs 29,000 crore”, and added, “You know who it is going to...You all know who is getting ports and airports. It is going to one company.”
The Opposition party also cited the BJP’s constant criticism that successive Congress Governments had produced no development in the country for decades since Independence. “The BJP’s slogan was that there had been no development in 70 years. Yesterday the Finance Minister announced a decision to monetise all the assets built in the past 70 years,” Rahul said.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said there had been no criteria or goals for such a big exercise. “Have they consulted stakeholders, the unions, etc? All this was hatched in NITI Ayog. Can this be the sole goal, to get money through rent? To get 1.5 lakh crore?” he asked at the Press conference with Rahul. “This is a grand closing down sale. Virtually, there won’t be any public sector undertakings left after the proposed ‘roads-to-railways’ monetisation plan of the BJP government,” Chidambaram said.
The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) said Modi-led BJP Government’s project of so called ‘National Monetisation Pipeline’ (NMP) to hand over productive national assets including vital functional infrastructural assets worth several lakhs crore of rupees to the domestic and foreign private monopolies virtually for a pittance.