Modi govt selling public properties for a song: Maken

Maken said his party would soon launch a nationwide movement against the NMP that would directly affect Uttar Pradesh.

Lucknow: All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary (in charge Rajasthan) Ajay Maken on Tuesday targeted the Modi government for National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) and said public properties were being sold for a song. He said his party would soon launch a nationwide movement against the NMP that would directly affect Uttar Pradesh.

Maken said the public properties had been built with public funds in the past 60 years (Sourced)

“We will not allow them sell these public properties. The Congress has set up a committee headed by senior leader Digvijay Singh and it would come out with an agitation plan against the move. Wherever possible the Congress governments may also come forward to buy assets being sold by the government. Chhatisgarh chief minister has announced that his government will buy a unit to protect jobs,” said Maken while speaking to mediapersons at Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) headquarters here.

He said “Out of 20 categories of properties listed for privatisation, the ones situated in UP include the Varanasi airport, set up in the name of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.” He said the Varanasi airport, valued for only ₹500 crore, would obviously be renamed after an industrialist. He said besides the Varanasi airport, other properties to be privatised included eight national highways passing from the state and Sports Authority of India’s Lucknow centre. He said the SAI centre being used to train sportspersons in various disciplines to win medals at international level would be uprooted to set up restaurants, bars and weddings etc, raising a question mark on how the sports persons would get training there. He said Delhi to Prayagraj railway line was also on the list of routes set for privatisation.

Maken said the public properties had been built with public funds in the past 60 years. The manner in which the Modi government had announced the scheme raised a question over its intentions.

He said the Modi government’s record about building infrastructure was poor. A sum of ₹7.20 lakh crore per annum was spent on infrastructure during the 12th plan period from 2012 to 2017 while the same came down to 5 lakh crore during the tenure of the Modi government. He said the government appeared to have no intention to build infrastructure and instead intended to provide monopoly to select friendly industrial groups. The UPA government had decided not to privatise strategic assets.