Demanding action against economic offenders and recovery of bank loans, CPI General Secretary D Raja on Thursday said the timing of the loan waivers for big corporates by the government was "distressing".
In reply to a question under the RTI, the Reserve Bank of India has revealed 50 names of bank loan defaulters for whom a total amount of Rs 68,607 crores has been written off as on September 30, 2019.
"Though such write offs of huge amounts in favour of big corporates is a regular feature in the banks, the timing of the same is very distressing. At a time when the poor people of our country are facing innumerable problems on account of COVID-19 pandemic and are bearing the burden through loss of livelihood, at a time when lakhs of migrant workers and contract workers have lost their jobs and have overnight become virtual beggars...it is a matter of shame that under the very nose of the present BJP-NDA government, such huge loans have been written off to favour these willful defaulters," he said in a statement.
Raja said his party has pointed out that bad loans in banks are alarmingly increasing year after year and demanded that effective measures should be taken by the government to recover these loans.
In 2004, (under UPA-I) total bad loans were Rs 51,500 crore. In 2009 (UPA-II) it was Rs 45,000 crore. In 2014 (NDA-I) it was Rs 2,16,000 crore and in 2019 (NDA-II) it has gone upto Rs 7,40,000 crore, he said.
"As per the written reply given in the Parliament, as on 31-3-2018, there were 9,331 wilful defaulters who together owed Rs 1,22,018 crores to the banks. It will be much higher now.
"What is intriguing is that fugitive offenders like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Vikram Kothari and many others who are facing criminal action are beneficiaries of the benevolence of the banks, RBI and the government. Should they be treated like other normal defaulters? They should be separately dealt with. Such concessions to them will only encourage more such tycoons to cheat the banks and flee the country," he said.
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