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Modi promoting crony capitalists

Kashmir Times. Dated: 2/21/2018 2:42:08 PM

Dear Editor,
When the system and institutional arrangements continue to be gamed and conned by crony capitalists, it really doesn't matter if the prime minister is personally clean or free of corruption charges in India. This is not about the individual at all. People learnt this when the system was being gamed under former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The people are seeing a repeat of it under current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The prime minister hasn't spoken a word on the bank fraud perpetrated by diamond merchants Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, whose companies now owe Rs 20,000 crore, if one adds to the bank fraud the amount of bad loans that they have to repay Punjab National Bank and other banks. The prime minister's repeated claims that he was successful in cleaning the system of all its ills is proving more and more hollow as frauds and scams tumble out of the closet in regular intervals. It appears that it is just the beginning of scams being unearthed under his regime.
Modi recently claimed his government had deregistered over 3 lakh dormant and shell companies listed with the Registrar of Companies. But it is apparent that this did not include the 200 shell companies of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi which the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate found to have been used to invest the Rs 11,400 crore of fraudulently obtained money from the banks.
The fact that Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi had enough clout within the banking system for their company officials to be able to independently operate the international inter-bank financial messaging system, SWIFT, using the log-in credentials of various PNB bank officials is a shocking reflection of cronyism and fraud at its worst.
The fact that the bulk of the fraudulent LoUs (letters of undertaking) were issued by PNB in early 2017 makes a mockery of finance minister Arun Jaitley's claims that banks were being recapitalised on the condition that they will strictly adhere to internal reforms and improved governance. Punjab National Bank got about Rs 5,000 croresas fresh capital in the first wave of recapitalisation. Unfortunately PNB may have already lost three times what it has received as fresh capital.
Ramesh Kumar, Jammu