Lok Sabha debates ‘White Paper’ exposing UPA failures

The Lok Sabha is holding a 12-hour discussion on the ‘White Paper’ presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today. The document highlighted the corruption, scams, economic mismanagement and poor policy planning in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the White Paper in the House in both Hindi and English languages. While it comprised a list of failures of the UPA government, it also contained a list of steps taken by the NDA government to turn the economy around and build the nation’s image.

A comparison of the UPA years with 10 years of Narendra Modi government, the ‘White Paper’ also shed light on the banking crisis legacy of the UPA government. When the Vajpayee-led NDA government took office, the Gross Non-Performing Assets (GNPA) ratio in Public Sector banks was 16.0 per cent, and when left office, it was 7.8 per cent.

“Numerous scams were bringing colossal revenue losses for the exchequer and fiscal and revenue deficits spiralling out of control. In 2014, our government inherited a deeply damaged economy whose foundations had to be rebuilt to enable self-sustaining long-term economic growth,” the White Paper mentioned.

As many as 15 scams in the UPA regime were highlighted by the finance minister in the Lok Sabha. The ‘Coal Block Allocation’ was the first scam highlighted by Sitharaman in the white paper. At the time, it came under direct supervision of the prime minister and hence sullied the ‘Mr Clean’ image of Dr Manmohan Singh.

It involved corruption in the Centre’s allocation of coal blocks to private entities for captive use, leading to an estimated loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the exchequer. “The Supreme Court cancelled 204 such allocations,” the white paper stated.

She also brought up the 2G spectrum scam which involved a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore of potential revenue to the Centre as estimated by a CAG report. Then Congress minister Kapil Sibal claimed that there were “zero” losses, which led to widespread public anger. It sent then telecom minister D Raja, an ally of the Congress, to jail for months along with high-profile bureaucrats.

The Modi government’s White Paper noted that decision-making in the UPA government came to a standstill due to corruption and scandals in defence, comprising defence preparedness. It said that time and again, there was a crisis of leadership in the UPA government. It came out in full public glare in the shameful public tearing up of an ordinance issued by the government.