Congress slams Modi regime over Rs 70,000 cr bank scams, IDBI sale
New Delhi, June 25: Congress on Monday launched a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government for leading India into "financial anarchy" with its "utter economic mismanagement" that has led to bank scams over Rs 70,000 crore, and now forcing LIC to buy the sinking IDBI Bank to "hide its failures".
"Post the numerous bank loot scams that have plunged the banking sector in deep crises, one more mega scam worth Rs 6,978 crore has been uncovered taking the total value of 13 bank loot scams to Rs 70,014 crore," said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.
He alleged that the Faridabad-based SRS Group, a diversified company, engaged in criminal conspiracy, cheating and frauds of Rs 6,978.72 crore reportedly using hundreds of shell companies defrauding 17 banks. It also laundered money and duped thousands of home buyers.
Citing Indian banks' Q4 losses for 2017-18 that touched an "astronomical" Rs 90,000 crore, Surjewala said Modi government's financial anarchy continues unabated as the NPAs which were Rs 2,63,000 crore in fiscal 2013-14 is now hovering around Rs 10,30,000 crore.
IDBI Bank is the worst performing public sector bank whose Q4 losses have swollen to Rs 5,663 crore and gross NPA has risen to a whopping Rs 55,588.26 crore, he said and added the bank has a bad loan ratio of close to 28 per cent.
"Utter economic mismanagement of Modi government and its Finance Ministry is writ large. To cover up its mess, it is now jeopardizing the hard-earned money of 38 crore LIC policy holders by forcing it to purchase the rapidly sinking IDBI Bank.
"It's a classic case of selling family silver of 38 crore LIC policy holders to hide the economic mayhem of failed 'Modinomics-Jaitleynomics'," he said.
Surjewala said the the Prime Minister's Office, Finance Ministry, the Reserve Bank of India, the Central Vigilance Commission, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Serious Fraud Investigation office, the Enforcement Directorate, the Corporate Affairs Ministry/the Registrar of Companies and the BJP government in Haryana are completely silent even after a series of complaints filed against the SRS Group as early as August 2017.
Thousands of people have been duped in the name of public deposits received by SRS Ltd, one of the SRS Group companies, he said, claiming that repayments of about Rs 90 crore have been denied despite various order from National Company Law Tribunal.
Surjewala said thousands of people have also been duped in the name of booking flats, homes, plots, floors and other deposits, with as much as 80 per cent advance as payments, but no delivery of the said land or flat allotments was done to the investors in these projects.
"In one of the glaring examples, the bank has served notices to 1,200 flat owners in SRS Royal Hills, Sector 87, Faridabad to vacate the flats to recover the loan," he said, adding that the residents had been staying for years without even a registry.
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Rare polar bear showed up on shores of Iceland. Police shot it
A rare polar bear that was spotted outside a cottage in a remote village in Iceland was shot by police after being considered a threat, authorities said Friday.
The bear was killed Thursday afternoon in the northwest of Iceland after police consulted the Environment Agency, which declined to have the animal relocated, Westfjords Police Chief Helgi Jensson told The Associated Press.
“It's not something we like to do,” Jensson said. “In this case, as you can see in the picture, the bear was very close to a summer house. There was an old woman in there.”
The owner, who was alone, was frightened and locked herself upstairs as the bear rummaged through her garbage, Jensson said. She contacted her daughter in Reykjavik, the nation's capital, by satellite link, and called for help.
“She stayed there,” Jensson said, adding that other summer residents in the area had gone home. “She knew the danger.”
Polar bears are not native to Iceland but occasionally come ashore after traveling on ice floes from Greenland, according to Anna Sveinsdóttir, director of scientific collections at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. Many icebergs have been spotted off the north coast in the last few weeks.
Although attacks by polar bears on humans are extremely rare, a study in Wildlife Society Bulletin in 2017 said that the loss of sea ice from global warming has led more hungry bears to land, putting them in greater chance of conflicts with humans and leading to a greater risk to both.
Of 73 documented attacks by polar bears from 1870 to 2014 in Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and United States — which killed 20 people and injured 63 — 15 occurred in the final five years of that period.
The bear shot on Thursday was the first one seen in the country since 2016. Sightings are relatively rare with only 600 recorded in Iceland since the ninth century.
While the bears are a protected species in Iceland and it's forbidden to kill one at sea, they can be killed if they pose a threat to humans or livestock.
After two bears arrived in 2008, a debate over killing the threatened species led the environment minister to appoint a task force to study the issue, the institute said. The task force concluded that killing vagrant bears was the most appropriate response.
The group said the nonnative species posed a threat to people and animals, and the cost of returning them to Greenland, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) away, was exorbitant. It also found there was a healthy bear population in east Greenland where any bear was likely to have come from.
The young bear, which weighed between 150 and 200 kilograms (300 to 400 pounds), will be taken to the institute to study. Scientists took samples from the bear Friday.
They will be checking for parasites and infections and evaluating its physical condition, such as the health of its organs and percentage of body fat, Sveinsdóttir said. The pelt and skull may be preserved for the institute's collection.
A Coast Guard helicopter surveyed the area where the bear was found to look for others but didn't find any, police said.
After the shot bear was taken away, the woman who reported it decided to stay longer in the village, Jensson said.
