BENGALURU: Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday hinted at the involvement of someone within the government in the recent Punjab National Bank scam worth Rs 11,000 crore. “I am sure the evidence will come out some day,” he said.
Citing similarities in the recent bank fraud cases that has shocked the nation, he said that it was interesting to note that the scams happened in the jewellery sector and key players of these scams were from Gujarat.
“It is not happening across other sectors. Obviously, at one level, people were assisted in the scam. Who helped or at what level they were helped, I have no evidence at all,” Chidambaram said. He was speaking during the Bengaluru launch of his book, ‘Speaking Truth To Power - My Alternate View’, at Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, on Sunday.
The NPA problem
Non-performing assets (NPA) swelled from a little under ‘2 lakh crore in May 2014 to a little over `8 lakh crore in December 2017, due to the fact that performing loans became non-performing loans during the period, he said.
Two sectors - Telecom and Power/Coal - have contributed to the NPAs more than others. This was due to ‘malicious twists’ given to Telecom and Coal policies of the UPA regime, due to which both sectors went ‘funk’, he said.
Coarse discourse
Alleging that there was an insidious ploy to diminish public institutions, he said that minimum governance has caused maximum damage to the country. Criticising the lack of discussion in the Parliament, he said, “discourse has become coarse in the country.”