Montek's preferred mutual funds as a choice of investment

Like many Indians, Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia has opted for a safer route - mutual funds - to invest in Indian stock market and has good savings in his five bank accounts, including one in United States. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Dec 13, 2012, 19:58:18 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Like many Indians, Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia has opted for a safer route - mutual funds - to invest in Indian stock market and has good savings in his five bank accounts, including one in United States.

In his annual statement of assets and liabilities submitted to Prime Minister's Office and in public domain through Right To Information Act for the first time, shows that Ahluwalia and his wife Isher Ahluwalia had invested Rs 3.92 crore in mutual funds, including Rs 58.49 lakh in Fidelity Investment in United States. The remaining Rs 3.33 crore is in Indian mutual funds.

Mutual funds are considered safer and less vulnerable to fluctuations of the stock market than investments in shares of the companies. The economist couple has not invested in stocks of any company, the statement shows. It does not provide details in which mutual funds the couple have invested.

Ahluwalia, who receives monthly enumeration of Rs 1.12 lakh per month from Planning Commission, also has savings worth Rs 1.43 crore in his five bank accounts.

This includes Rs 66.73 lakh in Washington based Bank-Fund Federal Credit Union, where his pension from World Bank is credited.

The website of the bank says only those working or pensioners with leading organizations such as World Bank and International Monetary Fund can have an account.

The economist couple owns a house in Greater Kailash and a plot in Noida. They also spent Rs 30 lakh on constructing a flat on single storey house owned by Ahluwalia's mother.

The annual asset and liability statement of all Central government ministries is on the website of the Prime Minister's Office but those having rank equivalent to a minister like Ahluwalia is not in public domain.

Ahluwalia, who has been plan panel's deputy chairperson for eight years has steered second phase of economic reforms and played an important role in pursuing several reforms such as use of technology in delivery of government services and opening up of infrastructure sector for private players.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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