Reckless UPA

The party says that the recent decision by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs to permit Navaratna and Miniratna PSEs to park 30 per cent of their surplus funds in equity based mutual funds is a retrograde step. “Channelising public sector funds into the secondary market in order to make speculative capital gains amounts to wasting public resources on socially unproductive investments. The CPI(M) and the Left parties had earlier suggested that the reserves of over Rs 2,39,000 crore currently being held by the CPSEs should be utilised by massively increasing capital investments by the CPSEs in expanding their scale of operations and creating fresh capacity, diversifying their activities if necessary.” The experience of the UTI scam should have precluded such a reckless decision, it says.

Compiled by Jayanth Jacob