Untenable monetisation plan cruel joke on people, says former Union Law Minister

Ashwani Kumar said the NMP seeks to legitimise favours to a favourite few at the cost of public interest

The BJP government’s National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) Policy is a cruel joke on the people of the country and is utterly untenable, former Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar said. The NMP is a ‘fire sale’ of the nation’s assets and is against national interest, and seeks to legitimise favours to a favourite few at the cost of public interest and is in breach of the Government’s fiduciary obligations, Mr. Kumar said at a press conference in Chennai on Thursday. Slamming the BJP government for the proposal, he said the policy was tailor-made for rent-seeking at various levels and reeked of crony capitalism. “The policy is virtually a transfer of taxpayer-funded assets to a handful of business groups. It will lead to a rising concentration of economic power in crucial sectors of the economy, result in loss of public revenues for 30-50 years,” he said.