Month: September 2013

Sir, on both, the Appropriate Bill and price rise, on behalf of my Party, only I will speak. So, I request you, Sir, to kindly give me some more time. Sir, I have nothing to say about the Appropriation Bill because it is almost a ritual to discuss the Appropriation Bill. But, in this regard, I would like to draw the attention of the hon. Finance Minister to Office Memorandum dated 24th October, 2005 vide which 11 States including Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal were included in the indicative list of debt-stressed States. So, there is no denying the fact that my State West Bengal is suffering from huge debt burden since 2004-05, according to the Government records. Sir, it is also a fact that we have inherited from the previous Government, which ruled and ruined West Bengal for long 34 years, a sum of Rs.2,03,000 crores as the debt burden.

And, from day one, our hon. Chief Minister is making appeals, repeated appeals, to the Government to kindly consider our request. We are not asking for any dole or a ‘special status’ category. We are asking for a temporary relief, interim relief in the form of moratorium on the principal amount as well as restructuring of the interest amount. Time and again, the Central Government has assured the State Government that some concrete measures will be taken in this regard. We had several discussions; our Chief Minister had several discussions; the officers had several discussions; and even the Members of Parliament belonging to our Party met the predecessor of the present Finance Minister in his office on a number of occasions and we are assured that the Government is seized of the matter and it will take positive steps. Even in this House, Sir, an assurance was given in reply to my question on 24th of April, 2012 by the hon. Minister of State for Finance, Namo Narain Meenaji, and I quote only one or two lines of it. I quote, “A letter has been received from the State Government of West Bengal requesting an interest and repayment moratorium on the outstanding debt of the State in the form of an annual grant for a period of three consecutive years which is under examination.” So, for a long one-and-a-half year, the examination is going on without yielding any result, without delivering any positive result as yet. We have heard that the hon. Finance Minister is visiting the States. We cannot say whether it is in search of new allies or otherwise. But he is on record saying that a Committee has been constituted to redefine the backward State set-up. We have no objection to it. If some States get relief, we shall be happy because they are our brethren; they are our neighbours, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand or any other State for that matter. We cannot have any objection because all the States are integral part of India and all States have different problems. But why are we being deprived? I am asking myself, and pat comes the reply that there is no reason except that it is part of a political vendetta only because we withdrew our support from the Government. This is very unfair, Sir. This is my first submission.

Secondly, so far as the price rise is concerned, my hon. colleagues have already expressed many things. So, I will touch only two-three points. The food price inflation is about ten per cent. The onion price rose by 117 per cent compared to last year’s price in August, as replied by the hon. Consumer Affairs Minister in reply to my question very recently in this House. Although its prices have started falling down, it is coming down, but the corrective measures must have been taken much earlier. Profiteering was allowed to continue unabated, hitting the common man. Sir, as Prasantda has said, the price of rice, wheat and all other food articles is still on the rise, and what to say about the price of petroleum products, particularly, diesel and petrol, which is being increased almost every fortnight on an average! It is reported that there will be further hike in the diesel and cooking gas price soon after today’s Session is over, and that too at the rate of five rupees or so.

Sir, according to experts, vast areas of our country including the coastal area, the Sunderbans delta and the entire NorthEastern Region is floating on oil, but to help strengthen profiteering of the import lobby of crude oil and gas, the Government has not taken much initiatives for oil exploration.

Sir, the Government put a cap on LPG last year. Let the hon. Finance Minister apprise the House how much money has been saved by putting the cap, in the last one year. According to our estimates, it is not more than Rs.1,500 cores. ir, the Planning Commission made an assessment that only those who earn Rs. 25 or less per day in rural areas and Rs.32 or less per day in urban areas are poor. Does it mean that the others are not poor? The Planning Commission has also claimed that poverty has been brought down to almost 21 per cent, while the World Bank Report published in April this year says that one-third of the world’s poorest of the poor live in India, and they number 40 crores; 40 crore people of India are the poorest of the poor in the entire world as per the report published by the World Bank in April this year!

Lekin Sir, kisi Congressi neta ne keh diya ki Mumbai me 12 rupiya me khana milta hai, to dusra neta chaunk pada aur kehne laga ki Delhi ke Jama Masjid ke area me 5 rupiya me bharpet khana milta hai. Sir, mujhe ye dekh kar Kishore Kumar k eek gaane ki line yaad aa gayi aur film ka naam `Chalti ka naam Gaadi’ tha. Kishore Kumar Madhubala ke saath ye gaana gaa reh the. Film ‘Chalti ka naam Gaadi` me kishore kumar ye gaana gaa reh the `paanch rupaiyaa baara aana, maarega bhaiyaa na na na na’. Abhi Congress netaon ne ye naya gaana shuru kar diya hai. Baat paanch rupaiyaa baara aana ki nahi hai, abhi naya sangeet paanch rupiyaa aur 12 rupiyaa ka hai. Agar Congress ki gaadi iss tarah chalti rehgi, to kitne dino tak garibon ke saath mazak chalta rehga. Aaj yeh sawal payda ho gaya hai.

Sir, this Government has, in fact, declared war against the common people, because whenever a commoner goes to the market and touches any vegetable, food article or essential commodity, he gets the shock of an electrocution. Such is the price situation in the market prevailing today.

Hence, according to my Party, this Government has denied and deprived the poor people of this country even an animal existence and, therefore, this Government must go.

Thank you.

Sir, there are two things here. One is, we urge the Government of India, please do not do politics with this. The situation is very sensitive. I want to bring just two points to his notice. The timing of that meeting was insensitive. The Chief Minister of Bengal has visited Darjeeling 21 times since she came to power in the last two-and-a-half years. Before that, the former Chief Minister of Bengal had visited Darjeeling zero times in ten years. Please have faith in the State Government. The State Government will resolve this and please do not play this divide and rule. We do not want to make issue on this now because you have said in the morning also that the Home Minister is unwell, but please, we urge you again, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong are three Assembly segments out of 294 in Bengal. It is a sensitive situation. The State Government in Bengal has this under control. So, please check cautiously if you have given us the assurance that henceforth this will not happen. The second and the last point is, a written assurance was given by the Prime Minister of India to the Chief Minister of Bengal in August. This written assurance was not adhered to because of the September 3 meeting.

Sir, for the last 15 years, since the Trinamool Congress came into inception, we have always stood firmly by whichever Government has been at the Centre when it comes to issues of national security. And, we want to reiterate that today as well. There are only four States in India that share their borders with three countries. Bengal is one of those States. As we all know, India shares its borders with seven countries. We appreciate that in the Statement the Defence Minister has, perhaps, disclosed what he is in a position to disclose and, for reasons that we understand and appreciate, may not have disclosed everything that does not need to be disclosed. But, at the same time, unlike the LoC, the China’s view on the LAC – this is one point on which I want to seek clarification – is one dotted line and India’s view on that same LAC is another dotted line. The dotted lines are not the same. The clarification that I would like to seek is this. All this report, which was submitted, was the journey — where the gentlemen, Mr. Saran, went – closer to our dotted line or was it closer to China’s interpretation of their dotted line? Secondly, you could either clarify or put to rest. There are, at least, two pieces of twenty-one minute video footage which is extremely disturbing and which is running on a few channels of the national media. It is disturbing and it is still very speculative because neither the Government has confirmed this nor has it denied that this footage exists. If you could clarify this, it would put many minds to rest.

Thank You Sir.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Chairman, Sir. Our Party, the All India Trinamool Congress, and our Leader, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, stand always for the welfare of the working class. This is why I rise to oppose this draconian Bill. The Bill, although it says that it is meant to promote old-age income security, but if we go through the provisions of the Bill, we find that this is a Bill to promote old-age income in securities. Sir, this is a black September to the millions of workers of our country because the time-tested social security arrangement, hitherto made available to the working class, has been abridged or withdrawn through this draconian Bill. Their bargaining power is shifted in the name of public good. Pension, Sir, is not a charity, but it is a return for the sacrifice and the services rendered by the employees. Sir, it seems that the Government refuses to see the writing on the wall. It has conveniently assigned for itself the role of an agent of multi-national corporates and the crony capitalists bent upon marauding the Indian economy. Otherwise, why the Indian Government shall keep opening mercilessly the door of Indian economy for the foreign capital when the role of unbridled capital in devastating the US and the European economy has amply been proved? Why has India been made a big bazaar for the international crooks?

Now all of us feel the effect. The flight of foreign capital has started after taking a pound of flesh from the body of each Indian and that too without any drop of blood. But we are bleeding from within.

Sir, many Latin American countries initiated and imitated the Chile model and reformed their pension schemes in 1990s, turning them into a fully or partially funded system of mandatory individual accounts. But privatisation of pension has not lived up to the provisions of proponents and supporters. Instead of handing over pension and savings of the workers to the vagaries of foreign economic expansionists, the Government should have followed those reformist countries, which are now introducing and working on reforming the reforms. This is the need of the hour that this reformist Government should work on reforming the reform, because it has been proved beyond doubt that all those measures taken by the Government in the name of reforms and liberalisation of economy are anti-people and anti-worker. If we give a quick look to some of the provisions of the Bill, whatever I have stated will be proved beyond doubt.

First of all, it is a very funny thing that I have found in this Bill. Clause 14(3) of Chapter V empowers the so-called authority to exercise the power of a civil court. It says that it will have the power to issue commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents. I have never heard of this thing that civil court issues commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents. The Government is always looking for commissions everywhere be it under the ground or above the ground. Here also, the Government, with that mindset, has introduced the word ‘commissions’. Perhaps it will be ‘summons’. If I am correct, it should be ‘summons’. But the Government is looking for commissions everywhere.

The second thing that I would like to say about this Bill is this. There is a provision for attachment of bank account of intermediaries. But it is also said in the proviso that only those accounts relating to pension will be attached. Suppose in the pension account there remains no balance, then what will be the effect of attaching that account? Other accounts of the intermediaries will not be touched. So, there will be Mehtas, there will be Parekhs, the public money will be looted and bank accounts will be attached without yielding any result.

The next provision that I would like to highlight is from Chapter VI. It says that there shall not be any implicit or explicit assurance of benefits except market-based guarantee mechanism. Again, those Mehtas and Parekhs will come and loot the money and the subscriber shall be captive to the so-called beneficial scheme.

Sir, clause 24 of the Bill is very important. I will take only one or two minutes. It is a very vital Bill. Clause 24 says, “The aggregate holding of equity shares by a foreign company either by itself or through its subsidiary companies or its nominees or by an individual or by an association of persons whether registered or not under any law of a country..” Those entities, irrespective of registration or not, in any country of the world will play with the money of the workers, the pension fund of the workers. It is surprising that the Government has provided a provision in this Bill in this fashion. What could be more anti-people, anti-workers?

That means, any entity – even an entity not having paper existence – can loot the money at their whims and fancies and the blanket intrusion of FDI, that is, Foreign Direct Intrusion, has been guaranteed by clause 24 by the Government. This is why, my Party strongly opposes this anti-labour Bill and I would appeal to all the Members of this House to vote against this Bill so that workers are not put in further distress. Thank you.