Pawar asks FM to tell his officials not to cross limits

Sharad Pawar has asked Pranab Mukherjee to restrain his officials from working beyond their jurisdiction and interfering in other ministries' work.

Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Sharad Pawar has asked Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to restrain his officials from working beyond their jurisdiction and interfering in other ministries’ work.

Taking exception to the noting made by Finance Ministry officials in matters relating to commodity exchanges,Pawar said: “I wrote to FM sometime back pointing out how their bureaucrats are functioning. I have given some example also.”

He was responding to queries on a letter he had recently sent to Mukherjee objecting to Finance Ministry officials giving directions that the National Stock Exchange (NSE) should buy commodity exchange NCDEX’s stake from institutions like LIC and Nabard.

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Pawar’s objection was that Finance Ministry had no role in deciding the stake holding in a commodity exchange and ask its own institutions to sell these to a private entity.

A NSE spokesperson declined to comment on the issue. The matter of hiking stake holding became redundant after the government issued guidelines on July 9 limiting stock exchange shareholding in a commodity exchange to 5 per cent.

The Forward Market Commission,meanwhile,said that there were reports of NSE wanting to up its stake in NCDEX from 15 per cent to 25 per cent by buying five per cent each from LIC and Nabard. “However,they had not approached us for permission,” FMC Chairman B C Khatua said.

According to reliable sources,some senior officials in the Finance ministry had made certain suggestions regarding institutional shareholdings in NCDEX,which comes under the purview of FMC and Consumer Affairs Ministry,sources said.

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Through the letter,Pawar made it clear that the finance ministry officials should limit their advise to matters related to their jurisdiction,sources added.

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