Comments
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said that banks have recovered over ₹13,000 crore from from asset sale of fugitives including Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. She also assured that the government is taking measures to curb prices of edible oil and other food items.
She was replying to debate on second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants (SDG) which was approved by Parliament. This proposes fresh cash outgo of over ₹2.99-lakh crore. Also, this talks about use of saving and diversion of around ₹74,000 crore taking total SDG of over ₹ 3.73-lakh crore.
Sitharaman said that public sector banks together have affected a recovery of about ₹5.49-lakh crore over the last seven financial years. “People who are defaulters, who have fled the country, we have got their money back and put it to the public sector banks and therefore the banks are safer today,” she said.
Recovery from defaulters
Speaking on the banks’ recovery from wilful defaulters, she said that a total of ₹13,109.17 crore has been recovered from the asset sales of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi as of July 2021 as per the information provided by the Enforcement Directorate. The latest recovery was ₹792 crore from the sale of assets belonging to Mallya and others on July 16, 2021, she added.
Also read: US court dismisses plea filed by Nirav Modi, associates
On the States’ financial position, the Finance Minister said the Centre in the first eight months of the fiscal has already transferred 86.4 per cent of what was provided in the full year 2019-20.
From the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), “funds are being provided and providing an extra ₹15,000 crore for emergency Covid-19 response. The financial position of the States is also reflected in the fact that the overall cash balance of States as on November 30, 2021 was ₹3.08-lakh crore approximately, fairly comfortable positions,” she said.
States’ cash balance
She further said the States are having substantial cash balance with them and there are only a few exceptions. Out of 28 States, she said, only two States are having negative cash balance.
Responding to various issues, including price rise, raised by the Opposition during the debate, she said the government is taking measures to cool down prices of edible oil and other essential commodities.
“We are taking measures through the EGOM (Empowered Group of Ministers) for taking care of essential goods. We will attend to the problem of edible oil price and also some of the essential edible items,” she said.
Sitharaman also said the government has so far paid around ₹ 93,685 crore since 2014 for oil bonds. The government will have to pay till 2026 when oil bonds matures, she said. Quoting former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she said, “I would like the nation to remember that issuing bonds and loading deficits on oil companies is not a permanent solution to this problem. We are only passing our burden to our children who will have to repay this debt.”
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.