Press Release 24th August 2021
CITU STRONGLY CONDEMNS The National Monetisation Pipeline(NMP)
—Nefarious Design of Loot of National Asset By BJP Govt
The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) denounces Modi-led BJP government’s project of so called ‘National Monetisation Pipeline’ (NMP) to hand over productive national assets including vital functional infrastructural assets worth several lakhs crore of rupees to the domestic and foreign private monopolies virtually for a pittance. The project is a big step of International Finance Capital dictated neoliberal policy. NMP is a pipeline of corruption while handing over public assets in private hands. It is a project of destroying national economy and bringing untold miseries to the workers and other sections of the toiling people.
The project NMP, announced by the Union Finance Minister on 23 August 2021, includes handing over to the private corporate cronies, inter alia, 26,700 Kms highways worth Rs.1.6 Lakh (L) Crore (Cr); - 400 Railway stations and 150 trains (Rs.1.5 L.Cr); - 42,300 Circuit Kms of Power Transmission Lines (Rs.0.67 L.Cr); - 5,000 MW Hydro, Solar and Wind Power Generation assets (Rs.0.32 L.Cr); - 8,000 Kms of National Gas Pipelines (Rs.0.24 L.Cr); - 4,000 Kms Pipelines of IOC and HPCL (Rs.0.22 L.Cr); BSNL and MTNL Towers (Rs.0.39 L.Cr); - 21 Airports and 31 Ports (Rs.0.34 L.Cr); 160 Coal Mining projects (Rs.0.32 L.Cr); and 2 Sport Stadiums (Rs.0.11 L.Cr) etc. And the assessment of the worth of those huge national assets at Rs 6 lakh crore as mentioned above from the official statement itself exposes the atrocious extent of deliberate undervaluation only to facilitate the private corporates to take over those vital infrastructural assets at throw away prices. There is more to come.
The destructive NMP is not meant for augmenting infrastructural growth in the country in the least as being claimed by Finance Minister and NITI Aayog. This is designed to allow their private corporate masters to earn huge revenue out of these going to be privatized/leased out national infrastructural asset without making any capital investment. This is nothing but loot of national assets.
Instead of investing in infrastructural growth, private corporate lobby including foreign entities are going to be awarded through NMP, the avenue to mint huge wealth through exploitation of those national infrastructural assets handed over to them under the garb of asset monetization. More concessions are to come after the initial announcement, as the past experience show, to draw the unwilling bidders modifying initial announcements.
CITU calls upon the workers and the people of the country to unitedly voice their condemnation such anti-national design of the BJP Govt at the centre and resolutely fight to defend the national assets being robbed by the foreign and domestic monopolies with the help of their servile government at the Centre.
Issued by
Tapan Sen
General Secretary
