Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 28: Former minister and senior Congress leader, Dr Manohar Lal Sharma today lambasted NDA Government at the Centre after the Reserve Bank of India said it will transfer Rs 1.76 trillion to the Centre-led Government and accuses Finance Minister of being “clueless” about the crisis and “stealing money” from the Central bank.
Manohar said the Centre possibly pressured the RBI to cover its mistake in calculating India’s budget. “This year’s budget, based on revised estimates, pegs revenue at 17.3 lakh crore while the economic survey says it is 15.6 lakh crore, the difference being 1.70 crore. Now, the Government has taken Rs 1.76 lakh crore to cover its losses. They miscalculated the budget. Now, to cover up its losses, it pressured the RBI to transfer the CRB and pushed the country into an economic emergency,” he said.
Sharma further said, ” India is in a deep financial crisis. India’s GDP is continuously falling. Our index of industrial production is at 2% and manufacturing sector is at 1.2% of GDP. Rupee has lost 4% of its value and is currently Asia’s worst performing currency. Government is in loss, they have no money for investments, banks have no money to give loans. In such circumstances, the Government has now decided to take RBI’s excess fund that is known as Contingency Risk Buffer (CRB). Nowhere, in the world does a Central bank give away its CRB to the government,” he said.
Cong leader demanded that the Centre should come out with a white paper on the state of the Indian economy within a week. He further said that one side NDA Govt talks about shining India but in reality India is going in backward direction where unemployment is all time high, prices of essential commodities are sky high and claimed that the Modi-led government at the Centre is still busy to divert people’s attention towards emotional issues rather than more pressing problems such as lack of jobs.
He said that transfer of RBI Surplus to BJP Govt proves that BJP is bankrupt in terms of Financial Policy and RBI is no longer an independent institution.
Manohar said that RBI’s stock of reserves accumulated over several previous governments is now handed over to this Govt and termed It is a raid on RBI’s reserves & autonomy, over which the former Governor & Deputy Governor had resigned in protest.
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