Reveal names of business houses whose bad loans waived: JD-U

JD-U today asked the government to reveal the names of business houses whose bad loans were waived, reacting sharply to the writing off of a whopping Rs 1.14 lakh crore of bad loans by 27 public sector banks between 2012 and 2015.
"Govt should reveal names of business houses whose bad loans waived off and also of those which are NPAs along with reasons of their increase," party chief Sharad Yadav tweeted.
Rs 1.14 lakh crore of bad loans have been written off by the public sector banks, with the last fiscal seeing a steep 53 per cent rise in write-offs as part of cleaning up balance sheet exercise.

Yadav also shot off a letter to Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar separately voicing his concern on the BJP government in Gujarat allegedly "weakening" the panchayati raj institutions.
He noted that scheduled areas in India are inhabited by the tribal population and that it has been challenge to usher the tribals in the mainstream of development efforts without disturbing or destroying their cultural identity and socio economic background.
Yadav said that in order to achieve this objective based on Bhuria Committee report, Parliament extended the provisions of 73rd Amendment Act to the scheduled areas in nine states which include Gujarat also by passing provisions of Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA).

PESA legally recognises the right of tribal communities to govern themselves through their own systems of self- government and also acknowledges their traditional rights over natural resources.

In pursuance of the above objective, PESA empowers gram sabhas to play a key role in approving development plans, controlling all social sectors, including the processes and personnel who implement policies, exercising control over minor forest resources, minor water bodies and minor minerals, managing local markets and so on.
Yadav alleged that while the objective of any government should be to empower more and more the gram panchayats especially in the scheduled areas where tribals live, the Gujarat government through district magistrates issue directions and set agenda for gram sabhas in scheduled areas.

"I would urge the central government to issue instructions to government of Gujarat to implement PESA in its right spirit in the scheduled areas," he said urging the minister to take immediate action in this behalf.