Yes, Mr President, Yes Messieurs FICCI and CII and others, we agree, this great country is being held to ransom, is being pushed to disaster, but not by the millions industrial workers but by less than hundred members of the flock of yours.

Who have usurped a hefty amount of Rs 58000 crore of the nationalised banks and financial institutions which has been termed as Non Performing Assets(NPA, loans taken but not returned), which are in fact the savings of the millions of common people of the country ? Who have evaded direct tax payment to the tune of Rs 41,230 crore ? Are they ordinary workers or you, the "respectable" citizenry ?

The Report of Reserve Bank of India and the CAG Report say--- mostly by your members, in FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM and the likes of the big business lobby.

As revealed by the RBI Report, less than hundred big business groups are responsible for the greater part of the NPA. Only 67 big companies, account for Rs 6605.66 crore of NPA, each defaulting payment of more than Rs 50 crore from the banks and financial institutions. Among them are all big stars of the big business lobby, carrying on bonhomie with the Vajpayee Govt--- some of them are K K Birla, G M Singhania, H R Jain, R S Shetty, M R Chhabaria, G P Parasrampuria, Arvind, Mafatlal, Bhalotias, Premier Cable of the Periwals and many others.

And such game of usurping public money deposited in the banks by the captains of industries and business are going on since long, in league with those in governance, and they found many innovative ways to defraud the public sector financial institutions and banks. Firstly, same company takes loan from number of banks and FIs and start deliberately defaulting in servicing the same and thus converting it to NPA. Secondly same group of companies conspicuously traps a particular bank or FI through different companies in that particular group one after another or together. And after taking loan, after paying a few instalments, and sometimes getting the loan and unpaid interest liability rescheduled as fresh loan once or twice, they deliberately stop servicing the loans thus pushing them to NPA category after six months of default.

The J K Synthetics of the Singhania Group owes Rs Rs 82.50 crore from State Bank of India and Rs 76.87 crore from ICICI at the same time and has not paid back anything.The Parasrampuria Synthetics Ltd digested Rs 352.10 crore from the banks and FIs, Rs 60.46 from Canara Bank, Rs 57.50 from Punjab National Bank, Rs 122.37 crore from ICICI and Rs 111.77 from IFCI and took all of them for a ride. Interestingly, the same Parasrampuria Group after traping the ICICI in the name of its Synthetics company for Rs 122 crore could again manage to draw from the same ICICI, an amount of Rs 54.52 crore in the name of Parasrampuria Industries Ltd and stopped paying back that also.The India Steamship Co of Birla group has taken Rs 51.71 crore from State Bank of India and not paid back. The Chhabaria Group have managed to digest Rs 66.77 crore from Bank of India in the name of Orson Electronics Ltd, Rs 1.2 crore in the name of Orson Marketing Ltd from Allahabad Bank and Rs 53.26 crore from Oman Investment Bank in the name of Shaw Wallace with impunity. Delhi based Ganapati Export headed by Aggarwal, Sharma and Kedias have drawn Rs 9.99 crore from United Bank of India and almost a similar amount from United Commercial Bank and added to the volume of NPA as usual.

The so called weak Banks, as identified by the infamous Verma Panel are also worst victims of the loot in the form of NPA by the big business lobby. The United Bank of India(UBI) has been ditched to the tune of Rs 70.43 crores by the Bhalotia Business group headed by CP Bhalotia and G D Bhalotia in the name of BTW Industries Ltd(44.27 crore), BTW Veneers Ltd(Rs 8.28 crore) and SS Industries(17.88 crore). The Bagaria group headed by RL Bagaria and V Bagaria have drawn Rs 25.26 crore from the same UBI in the name of two different companies viz Ratan Exports & Industries Ltd (REIL) and REIL Products Ltd to the tune of Rs 21.39 crore and 3.87 crore respectively and not paid back anything. The Kanoi family reigning in the Tea sector , consisting of H K Kanoi and O P Kanoi have sucked Rs 14.69 crore from UBI on the letterheads of three companies viz Tonganagaon Tea Estate Ltd(Rs 6.77 crore ), Mokaibari Kanoi Tea Estate(Rs 5.61 crore) and All India Tea trading Co (Rs 2.31 crore). And their are Poddars, Khaitans, Aggarwals Bajajs any many others in the list of those defaulters who have sucked to the bottom, all the nationalised banks to turn them "Weak" and pave the way for their closure/sell out.

The whole loan recovery machineries have been so operated as to allow the usurpers of such huge amount of public wealth of a resource-starving country like ours go scot free. As per the same report of Reserve Bank of India, till 31ST March 1998, there were 14,36,739 cases of default in bank loans pending in different courts of the country involving Rs 21,824.92 crore of NPA. Some of such cases have been going on for many years, thanks to the commitment of the persons at the helm, responsible for handling those cases, and it was not a commitment to the public good, but to those committing crime of default and to themselves. Upto June 1997, 11700 cases were pending in Debt Recovery Tribunal(DRT) involving Rs 8866.67 crore of NPA, of which only 1045 cases could be disposed of, involving less than ten percent of the amount and only Rs 178 crore

( less than 2%) could be recovered. The lackadaisical state of affairs of the whole recovery machinery and methodology, little power of the DRTs –all emboldened and rather enthused the big business lobby to play ducks and drakes with public money.

The profile of NPAs revealed by the Report of RBI also shows that it was the big business lobby defaulting in terms of several crores of rupees company-wise constitute the major portion of the NPAs. On the NPA head, The Bank of India gets Rs 540.1 crore from only 8 companies, Canara Bank gets Rs 225.99 crore from 3 companies, Indian Bank gets Rs 687.27 crore from 8 companies, Punjab National Bank gets Rs 562.48 crore from 7 companies, IDBI gets Rs 1153.61 crore from 11 companies, ICICI gets Rs 447.50 crore from 6 companies and IFCI gets Rs 322.9 crore from only 3 companies.

The entire profile of the holders of Non Performing Assets(NPA) of the nationalised banks and financial institutions clearly reveals that a conscious game was being played by the handful of big business/industry owners in collusion with those in power to usurp public wealth deposited in banks and FIs, and it was not merely a case of normal default for the greater part of the NPA. And it was these particular faces who are being seen to suggest closure of so called weak banks(with more NPAs) identified by the infamous Verma Panel and privatisation of the rest. The Task Force constituted by the great CII to deal on the problems of NPA of the banks is loaded with most of those persons who are the major digestors of crores of bank money such as Arun Bharat Ram, promoter of SRF, Pradip Kumar Khaitan of Khaitan & Co, and another person owing more than Rs 100 crore to different public sector banks on NPA head. N N Kamapani of J M Morgan Stanley Ltd and Pradip Shah of Asia Fund Advisors, both members of the CII Task Force on NPA also are responsible for NPA to the tune of Rs 80 crore of the nationalised banks . And this Task Force has now suggested closure of the weak banks identified on ground of bigger NPA which was created by them only and also suggested settlement of NPAs with sharp discount to the criminal defaulters. (The Observer, 20/21-12-99).

Interestingly, it was this section of "great Indians(?)" who are also taking public exchequer for a ride. As per the Report of Comptroller and Auditor General of India(CAG), the direct tax arrears has mounted to Rs 41,230 crore in 1997-98 fiscal, an increase of 22.7% over the previous fiscal and it is on the rise. In the report presented before the Parliament, the CAG observed that despite Rs 9554.25 crore from Voluntary Disclosure of Income Sheme(VDIS), total tax collection declined by Rs 168.93 crore in 1997-98, although there is an increase in the number of assessees by 15 lakhs. It was noted by the CAG that more than 80% of the new asseessees, both corporate and non-corporates, are from the low income strata. This clearly reveals that the big-guys in the business lobby who have taken the country’s banking system for a ride, are also the villains of tax evasion contributing to tax arrears of Rs 41,230 crore. (The Observer, 31-12-99).

They are looting the nationalised banks by deliberately defaulting payment with impunity, they are drying up the public exchequer by evading tax liability with the indulgence of those in power and now they are dictating policies to the Govts.