India / We are not selling off country's assets: FM on National Monetisation Pipeline

New Delhi: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said monetisation of public assets doesn’t mean selling them off. She said their ownership will continue to remain with the Central government and they will be taken back after a stipulated period of time. This comes after government’s National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), launched this Monday, faced sharp criticism from the Opposition.

Slamming Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for accusing the Centre of selling government assets, Sitharaman said if monetisation meant that, then assets monetised under the Congress rule were also sold, pointing at the monetisation of Mumbai-Pune Expressway and a request for proposal (RFP) called for New Delhi railway station in 2008 when the Congress-led UPA was in power.

Sitharaman, who is on a two-day visit to Mumbai, was speaking after annual performance review meeting with public sector banks at the State Bank of India head office at Bandra Kurla Complex. “I wish the Opposition would have done some home work before raising questions and making allegations against the Modi government,” she said.

“In October 2008, an RFP was called for monetisation of New Delhi Railway station. Who was Prime Minister and finance minister then? If Rahul Gandhi is indeed against monetisation, why didn’t he tear the RFP into pieces like he tore an ordinance when the then Prime Minister (Dr Manmohan Singh) was abroad (in 2013),” she said. She was referring to Gandhi tearing up the ordinance which aimed at bypassing the Supreme Court order that banned convicted netas. It was eventually withdrawn by the Cabinet.

Under the NMP, the Centre’s infrastructure assets and state-run companies will be leased to create ₹6 trillion fund to build new infrastructure. Among the projects the government plans to lease are 26,700 km of roads, 90 passenger trains, 400 railway stations, 28,608 circuit km transmission lines, 286,000km of Bharatnet fibre network and 14,917 towers owned by state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd.

She said monetisation may mean something else to the Congress which comes up with accusations of selling assets. “This is the area they (Congress) are very good at. They have sold air, they have sold water, they have sold mines and made a lot of kickbacks with it,” she alleged.

“We are not selling off the country’s assets. There will be a strict hand-back rule... There will be no change in the ownership of assets and it will remain with the government. The scheme focusses on brownfield assets where investment has already been made but they remain under- utilized. If the government wants to utilise them, it has to be done through the monetisation process only,” she said.