A Selfie with Socialist and Democratic ‘Republic’ of India
Akhilesh kumar
At a time when Media is busy in showering praise over Industry, an unorthodox and illustrious journalist M.K. Venu has preferred to draw attention of people towards persistent loan defaulters among business houses. He has written extensively on 25th January 2016 in his well articulated article (thewire.com), about the pathetic and remorseful conditions of the public sector banks in India. Bad and sad practice of ever-greening of loans by loan defaulters is a cause of concern for the entire country.

It is quite shocking to know that the leading corporates in India are indulging in ever-greening of loans. In other words they are borrowing repeatedly from banks to pay interest on the previous loans. In ordinary circumstances an average borrower is shunned by bankers on the grounds of his/her credit-worthiness. This rule, however, does not seem to apply to the extraordinary borrowers that is the influential and powerful industrials.
The bank officials are quite generous enough in sanctioning loans to those business houses who are already defaulters. One really does not know what are the actors and factors active behind the scenes in throwing public sector banks in to ditch. Rule of law and equality before law have become a mirage in a great country called ‘India’.
Poor farmers are committing suicide due to the indebtedness. There is no law or policy or generosity shown by banks to the dying farmers. But the same public sector banks are going out of way to help the powerful business lobby. What can be said about these double standers in the socialist, democratic republic?

Akhilesh kumar is working as a journalist in Delhi after completing his degree from Indian Institute of Mass Communication

Mr. Venu in article pointed out concerns about the worsening situation of public sector banks. He has indicated the warnings of RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan that the bad loans in the banking sector could spin out of control if action is not taken with a sense of urgency.
Point to be noted is that recently on several occasions, RBI Governor Rajan had highlighted it sincerely but Narendra Mod- led NDA government is flying in the sky to bring out economic heaven. Once again in Davos (World Economic Forum Summit), Rajan has raised the same questions. He suggested that just a handful of businesses have borrowed massive sum of money from banks and are actually choking credit to the rest of the economy because of their ‘inability’ to pay back the loans.
Venu has mentioned many instances of the established corporate groups who are rapidly dominating the whole system with the help of their political nexus. Vijay Mallya of the Kingfisher Group is one of them, whose company has been already declared a debt defaulter by the State Bank of India. But Mallya had recently celebrated his 60th birthday bash with great pomp in a super deluxe hotel in Goa.
According to the RBI guidelines, big defaulters who have not paid back bank loans must refrain from holding expensive birthday bashes. The big question here is that was it really that Mallya’ Kingfisher Group in that situation on which ground, he had been freed and even given bailout packages? Is it not a mockery of grand ‘Republic’?
Hopelessly, one wonders that rules and regulations are only for ordinary people in this country. Inspiring journalist Venu wrote that "Mallya’s default" is only the tip of the iceberg. There are bigger corporate groups, with immense political clout, who are also in default but they have technically avoided being declared defaulter through what is called “ever-greening” of loans. Ever-greening essentially involves making fresh borrowing from banks to simply pay interest’’.
He added that besides Mallya, there are several corporate groups including Essar, Reliance ADAG, GMR, GVK, Adani, Lanco, Videocon, Vedanta, Jaypee, who are ordered to repay their aggregate gross debt the sum of 7.3 lakh crore Rupees.
The only moral of this story is that poor farmers have a duty to die due to their inability to repay loans while the rich corporate have a birth-right to resort to ever-greening of loans.
Long live ‘Socialist’ and ‘Democratic’ Republic of India.
Akhilesh kumar is working as a journalist in Delhi after completing his degree from Indian Institute of Mass Communication.

Hastakshep