The BJP government’s National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) Policy is a cruel joke on the people of the country and is utterly untenable, former Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar said.
The NMP is a ‘fire sale’ of the nation’s assets and is against national interest, and seeks to legitimise favours to a favourite few at the cost of public interest and is in breach of the Government’s fiduciary obligations, Mr. Kumar said at a press conference in Chennai on Thursday.
Slamming the BJP government for the proposal, he said the policy was tailor-made for rent-seeking at various levels and reeked of crony capitalism. “The policy is virtually a transfer of taxpayer-funded assets to a handful of business groups. It will lead to a rising concentration of economic power in crucial sectors of the economy, result in loss of public revenues for 30-50 years,” he said.
Mr. Kumar said the justification of collecting ₹6 lakh crore from the NMP to facilitate ₹100 lakh crore of investment in the infrastructure sector “is an absurdity”. He said no consultations had been held with the stakeholders or in Parliament before the announcement of “the grand clearing sale policy, which is a fraud on power”. He also questioned the criteria the government was using to select the assets for monetisation and the basis on which such selections were being made.
He further said that the proposed concession period of 30-50 years in favour of private parties would virtually amount to passing off public rights in perpetuity, with no clear guidelines for balancing profits and utility motives. “The policy could effectively lead to job insecurity and could defeat the policy of reservation in jobs for the SC, ST, OBCs,” he said.
