AIBOC, CPI denounce National Monetisation Pipeline
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 26 2021: All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), the apex organisation of supervisory officers in the banking industry, strongly denounced the 'asset monetisation' programme launched by the Union Finance Minister on August 23, 2021 .

AIBOC is of the considered view that this scheme is a move to initiate wholesale privatisation of public sector assets across all the crucial infrastructure sectors, said a press release issued by general secretary of AIBOC, Soumya Datta.

The 'National Monetisation Pipeline' developed by the NITI Aayog intends to sell off/lease public sector assets worth Rs 6 lakh crore to private corporates in the next four financial years, from 2021-22 to 2024-25.Assets worth Rs 88 thousand crore has been targeted for such 'monetisation' or privatisation in the current financial year.

The shortlisted assets include National Highways, Trains, Railway Stations, Power Generation and Transmission, Oil & Gas pipelines, Telecom infrastructure, Mines and Minerals and others, added the press release.

This wholesale privatisation of infrastructure assets under the garb of 'asset monetisation' is accompanying the disinvestment and strategic sale of entire PSUs across several sectors, including general insurance companies and banks in the public sector, initiated through the Union Budget 2021 .

Such privatisation will only benefit a handful of large corporates while destroying the foundations of the National economy, AIBOC stated.

AIBOC expressed concern that while the Government has been citing growing fiscal stress and public debt as the justification for such privatisation, the reality is that the Government's revenue targets have gone haywire due to reckless corporate tax cuts amidst the economic slowdown, which has only helped in enhancing corporate profits and creating a stock market bubble, but has singularly failed to bring about any real economic recovery.

The sale of public assets in a situation of demand deficiency in the economy will also lead to under-valuation of assets and corruption, thus institutionalising crony capitalism.

AIBOC urged the Union Government to desist from moving along this disastrous path of selling family silver, going against the National interest.

The employees, officers and other stakeholders of the public sector enterprises in India, which collectively serve as the backbone of the economy, are totally opposed to privatisation of public assets and its other avatars, namely disinvestment, strategic sale and the latest, 'asset monetisation'.

AIBOC warned that it will launch a country wide movement mobilising public opinion and the Government will face outright people's resistance if such policies are not reversed and rescinded.

Also the Communist Parties of India -Manipur State Council (CPI-MSC) has stated that the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is a ploy to sell India's asset to corporate houses.

The CPI-MSC in a press release noted that the pipeline as proposed by the Finance Minister is to sell away hard earned and constructed assets of the Country rather than a means to recover India's economy.

The very idea of NMP is against the will of the people as it allowed sale of public sector assets to corporate houses directly, it said.

The Government's policy has a stark difference to the proposals of the opposition parties and trade union organisations had raised and it shows that the Government's intention is only to favour big corporate houses which do not care for the people's welfare, it alleged.

The left parties will start a movement against the Modi-led Government against such moves to benefit corporations and to remain in power, it added.

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