A crook among us
The investigation of Ambindent Marketing Pvt Ltd which has committed a fraud of hundreds of crores, the mask of many so called ‘prestigious’ persons is coming off. The enormity of this crime is unravelling with the arrest of BJP supporter and former minister who was also a BJP insider, Janardhan Reddy. National leaders of BJP are trying hard to disassociate themselves from Reddy as much as possible. Ambident is not a crime committed by a single person. This is an operation that has a massive team work behind it.
There is a cheat even among those who cheat on others. The same mindset that prompts them to cheat people, makes one fall for such trap as well. This has been proved beyond doubt in Ambident case. We cannot simply hold the kingpin of the chain responsible and wash our hands off the rest of the case or even by just blaming Reddy for the whole mess. Names of media persons are also being heard in connection with this case. Apart from giving ‘breaking news’ or ‘investigation report’ TV channels have also served much more than their share of news to the people.
Some television channels have been known to blackmail a few influential and rich people, a few gullible ones too, to extract money from them. Ambident incident has unmasked this criminal side of the channels who preach honesty to the world but are involved in dark businesses themselves. The Ambident case is trying to project those who recklessly invested black money earned through real estate transactions into this company, as victims of the fraud. There is a culprit in them, who wants to earn easy money. Aren’t we forgetting that? All these people would hesitate a lot if they were asked to invest into factories or businesses run by the most hardworking farmers of this country. They’d never use their money to bail out anyone in trouble. This very selfishness of wanting to earn easy money has got them trapped.
The investors are not some normal innocent persons. There are officers and many others who enjoy great respect in the society. This company has used their greed to make money for its investors. Along with this, the brains behind the company also know the greed in the media. Company and its people like Reddy need goodwill of people across the spectrum to protect them in case they get caught. That there are politicians behind this is beyond doubt. Moreover, how would Reddy get Rs 20 crore? How can he operate without the ‘safety’ assured by his political bosses sitting in Delhi who assured Reddy to give a word on protecting the men behind the company?
Political parties which used the money supplied by Reddy are party to Ambident without a doubt. Not just that, even voters who took the money from Reddy to cast votes in favour of his candidate are also beneficiaries of this scam. So before blaming someone for this, we need to see how big this chain of social liability gets. There is not much of a difference between Reddy and TV channels heads who were part of this fraud network. Those blackmailers in the guise of media persons are more dangerous than Reddy because they are not identified as criminals yet. Though they preach all nobility to people, deep inside they’d be hand in glove with the criminals. When the issue of their morality raises, one would wonder how dark their souls are to even speak about this. Finally, the benefit of Ponzi schemes such as Ambident are shared by both Reddy types and the media types. If the latter category is party to this, they should be arrested immediately.
If they are let off, number of people who assume they can loot people and run away with money and enjoy media protection, will increase manifold. Hundreds of companies come up everyday with money-doubling Ponzi schemes. Even police officers have invested in this and have silently suffered when the money was all gone. Easy methods to make money always land people in trouble some day or the other. People invest in them without even thinking and then cry victims when the fly-by-night companies disappear into thin air with their money. Instead of investing into such fake companies and losing money, people should come together to make co-operatives and invest into businesses that aid better socio-economic growth. That way their returns are assured and even society benefits at large.
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PM must explain why his govt scrapped Backward Region Grant Fund: Congress
New Delhi(PTI): The Congress on Friday hit out at the BJP for "scrapping" the Backward Region Grant Fund in 2015 and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to explain why his government "callously" did away with the "forward-thinking" scheme of the UPA.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posed questions to the prime minister ahead of his rallies in Uttar Pradesh.
"Why has the Modi Sarkar scrapped the Backward Regions Grant Fund? Why has the BJP neglected UP's mentha farmers? Why has CM Yogi repeatedly lied about reopening the Budhwal Sugar Mill?" Ramesh said.
Elaborating on what he said were "jumla details", the Congress leader said the Backward Region Grant Fund, aimed at uplifting the backward districts of India, was "callously scrapped" by the Modi government in 2015.
"This forward-thinking scheme was established by the UPA government in 2006 and by 2013, Uttar Pradesh's backward districts had received benefits worth Rs 4000 crore from it," he said.
Ramesh pointed out that in 2015, the Modi government discontinued separate budgetary allocations for this scheme, transferring it to states and slashing annual funding to the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan (RGPSA) from Rs 1,006 crore to just Rs 60 crore.
"This came as a significant blow to districts like Fatehpur that received crucial development funds from the scheme. Can the outgoing PM explain why his government so callously scrapped the Backward Region Grant Fund?" Ramesh said in a post on X.
Pointing out that India is the world's largest producer and exporter of mentha oil and UP alone accounts for 90 per cent of India's total production, Ramesh claimed that the mentha oil industry is now reeling from convoluted tax classifications, high GST, and general government neglect.
"Instead of trying to support farmers and processors, the government is trying to extract maximum revenue from the industry. First, the government follows a dual policy for mentha - it is classified as an industrial product under GST, but it is classified as agricultural produce when it comes to the Mandi Tax," he said.
This enables double taxation - GST as an industrial product, Mandi Tax as an agricultural product, Ramesh said.
"Farmers already have to pay the 12% GST on mentha oil sales, and under the new Reverse Charge Mechanism (RCM), RCM is levied on purchase. Mentha oil processors are forced to take on the tax liability when purchasing mentha oil from farmers and therefore take on dual tax liability," he said.
Finally, despite mentha being an entirely export-oriented product, the government provides no incentives to boost production, processing, or export, Ramesh claimed.
Why have the outgoing PM and the BJP neglected such an important Indian export, he asked.
"Even after repeated promises from PM Modi and CM Yogi, the Budhwal Sugar Mill remains inactive," he said.
"The PM first promised to revive all of UP's inactive sugar mills in 2014.Then in 2017, before assembly elections, Yogi Adityanath said that the mill would be revived if the BJP formed the government. The BJP won and formed the government but the mill remained inactive," Ramesh said.
Again, in 2022, CM Yogi Adityanath promised to restart the mill and even approved a supplementary budget of Rs 50 crore for the project, he said.
"The government also began to acquire land near the mill, raising hopes of its revival. However, months have now passed and no construction work has been initiated. After all of the BJP's promises, can the outgoing PM explain why the Budhwal Sugar Mill still remains inactive?" Ramesh said and asked the prime minister to break his "silence" on these issues.
