Mumbai, July 23 (). Shiv Sena (UBT) on Thursday accused the central government of protecting big corporate loan defaulters while taking strict steps to recover loans from poor and middle class people.
The party said in an editorial in its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ that according to the written reply of Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Choudhary in the Lok Sabha, between the financial year 2014-15 to 2025-26, public sector banks have written off bad loans worth Rs 7.75 lakh crore from 1,249 such accounts, each of which had an outstanding of Rs 100 crore or more. The party said that despite such huge defaults, banks have so far been able to recover only Rs 3.10 lakh crore.
The government told Parliament that writing off the loan is a normal technical accounting process. This does not mean that the loan has been waived off.
However, in the editorial of ‘Saamna’ this argument of the government was described as shocking and hypocritical. Shiv Sena (UBT) raised questions that the Modi government has been claiming to bring financial discipline in the banking system since coming to power. Then how can it happen that big industrialists do not repay such huge loans to banks and instead of recovery, the government writes them off as bad loans?
The editorial said, “Taking a huge loan, repaying a small part of it and not returning the rest seems to be happening with government approval.” In this, the current period was described as the golden period of loan default. Such a situation has arisen in the country that poor people have to work hard to repay loan installments, while billionaires do not repay loans worth thousands of crores of rupees to banks. If the government is also involved in this, then who will stop those who loot public money?”
A major issue also raised in the editorial was that the government is refusing to make public the names of big corporate loan defaulters. The government says that under Section 45E of the Reserve Bank of India Act, loan-related information is kept confidential, hence the names of these people cannot be made public.
Questions were raised on this argument of the government in the editorial. It said, “The names of small loan defaulters are made public, but why are the names of big industrialists hidden in the name of confidentiality? For small defaults of middle class people, small businessmen and farmers, their properties, vehicles and houses are seized or sealed, while why is such action not taken against big corporate defaulters?”
The Thackeray faction raised the question whether big loan defaulters donate heavily to the ruling party. The party alleged that an undeclared policy like “donate donations, waive off loans” is working behind this.
The editorial said that common people and big industrialists are treated differently. It said that while ordinary tax payers cut down their expenses to repay small loans, rich industrialists are protected from action even if they do not repay huge loans from public sector banks.
Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) alleged that public sector banks are being harmed due to the nexus of fraudsters from the industry and people in the government. The party said that if the government continues to protect such people, public money will not be safe.
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SHK/VC