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Scams during Mayawati's rule worth Rs 40, 000 crore : Akhilesh Yadav

May 16, 2012

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Lucknow, May 16: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday said that financial irregularities were all-pervasive during the five-year tenure of Mayawati and affected practically every segment of the society. Yadav said that over Rs 40,000 crore were misappropriated in schemes ranging from eco parks to the NRHM.

The government would soon set up a commission to bring the probes into various scams under a single investigating authority along with inquiries recommended by the Lok Ayukta against a number of ministers in the previous government, Yadav said on Tuesday here.

People usually tend to take into account the money spent on a project as its net worth of the scam. But the actual cost of these projects turn out to be much higher, Akhilesh said. "When government makes such assessments, it includes the cost of land used, value of the existing structure razed to the ground for the new project, the repeated changes in design and construction work - all of this directly amounts to losses to the state exchequer," the chief minister said.

As per the government's estimates, the total worth of scams during the BSP rule is over Rs 40,000 crore, which is almost equal to the annual outlay for the state during 2011 - 2012 and is nearly one-fourth of the state's annual budget of Rs 1.89 lakh crore.

The major scams which had allegedly taken place during the Mayawati regime and are under the SP government's scanner are NRHM scam, toilet scam, elephant statues scam, Noida land scam, High Security Registration Plates (HSRP) tender scam, seed scam, etc. Investigations and inquiries are under way in each of these scams and in 50% of the cases, arrests have also been made leaving hardly any scope of doubt over allegations of misappropriation.

Though investigations into these scams have led to the arrest of bureaucrats and even senior ministers in the BSP government, the investigators are yet to establish a possible direct link between the misappropriations and the then chief minister Mayawati.

However, senior SP ministers have started accusing Mayawati of being directly involved in the scams. On Monday, health and family welfare minister Ahmed Hasan said: "Mayawati's name is also figuring in the NRHM scam." Another senior minister Azam Khan said that the allegations being levelled by the SP all these years are turning out to be true.

On Tuesday, former UP chief minister Rajnath Singh joined the chorus saying: "It is virtually impossible that such huge amounts were swindled and the then chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati was neither aware nor involved in the whole thing. Such huge sums of money cannot be swindled without the consent and interest of the chief minister," Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday.

But the BSP says that the accusations of scams were a mere political gimmick. Party's state president Swami Prasad Maurya said Mayawati had been the only chief minister till date to have taken stringent action against her own ministers and MLAs when ever they were found taking the law in their hand. "Name me one chief minister to have done this?" he questioned. "All this hype about the scams is being cooked up only to cover-up the government's failure in controlling the crime situation in the state," the SP state president said.

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Agencies
May 10,2020

New Delhi, May 10: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ensured audit of donations made to the PM-CARES Fund, and to share the details and the money spent with the people.

"The PM-CARES Fund has received huge contributions from PSUs and major public utilities like the Railways. It's important that the Prime Minister ensure the fund is audited and that the record of money received and spent is available to the public," he tweeted.

The #PmCares fund has received huge contributions from PSUs & major public utilities like the Railways.

It’s important that PM ensures the fund is audited & that the record of money received and spent is available to the public.

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 9, 2020
His remarks came amid reports that the central government is accumulating a huge sum of money in the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund set up as a corpus to fight novel coronavirus and that the amount spent will not be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

The CAG office had clarified that since the fund is based on donations, it has no right to audit a charitable organisation.

On Friday, Rahul Gandhi told the media that the PM-CARES Fund should be audited and people of the country should know about the donors and the donations made.

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Agencies
July 30,2020

Mumbai, Jul 30: Counterfeiting incidents have increased 24 per cent in the country in 2019 over the previous year, creating an over Rs 1 lakh crore hole in the economy, according to a report.

The report also said counterfeiters are having a free run due to the pandemic-driven disruptions to organised supply chains and the resultant spike in consumer demand.

According to the report by ASPA, a self-regulated industry body of anti-counterfeiting and traceability solutions providers, counterfeiting has risen steadily in the last few years, and exploiting the pandemic as a cover for their activities.

Between February and April 2020, over 150 incidents of counterfeiting cases were reported, mostly about fake PPE kits, sanitisers and masks taking advantage of the high demand for these products, it noted.

"There was a 24 per cent increase in counterfeiting in 2019 over 2018, leading to the loss of more than Rs 1 lakh crore to the overall economy," said Nakul Pasricha, president of Authentication Solution Providers Association.

The association works with global authorities like the International Hologram Manufacturers Association, Counterfeit Intelligence Bureau of the Interpol, and domestic industry lobbies like Ficci, he said.

Counterfeiting is a universal issue and is 3.3 per cent of global trade, according to the OECD data, impacting social and economic development across the world.

The report lists the currency, FMCG, alcohol, pharma, documents, agriculture, infrastructure, automotive, tobacco, lifestyle and apparel, as the 10 sectors impacted most by counterfeiting.

Among these, currency, alcohol and FMCG continue to be the top three sectors with the highest counterfeiting in the last two years. The FMCG sector is most vulnerable, as counterfeit incidents rose 63 per cent between 2018 (79) and 2019 when the reported cases jumped to 129.

Within the states, the fakers have a free run in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bengal, Punjab, Jharkhand, Delhi, Gujarat, and Uttarakhand, calling for urgent actions to frame anti-counterfeiting policy measures.

According to the report, UP continues to be on top followed by Bihar, Rajasthan, and together these three states represent almost 45 per cent of all counterfeiting reported in the last two years.

What is more alarming is that counterfeiting is not limited to high-end luxury items today, as common everyday items as fake cumin seeds, mustard cooking oil, ghee, hair oils, soaps, baby care vaccines and medicines are aplenty in the markets.

"There is an urgent need for building and nurturing authentication ecosystems in the country with the active involvement and active participation of all stakeholders," said Pasricha.

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News Network
February 28,2020

Feb 28: Market benchmark Sensex plummeted over 1,100 points, wiping off over Rs 5 lakh crore investor wealth, in opening session on Friday amid a massive selloff in global equities as rising coronavirus cases outside China stoked fears of a pandemic that could dent world growth.

The 30-share index sank 1,100.27 points, or 2.77 per cent, to 38,645.39, while the NSE Nifty cracked 329.50 points, or 2.83 per cent, to 11,303.80.

All Sensex components were trading in the red, led by losses in Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Mahindra and Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, HCL Tech and Reliance Industries.

In the previous session, the Sensex settled 143.30 points, or 0.36 per cent, lower at 39,745.66, and the Nifty fell 45.20 points or 0.39 per cent to end at 11,633.30.

According to analysts, till last week the market was of the view that coronavirus was going to have minimum impact on global economy as situation in China was being contained. But the increase in the number of new cases is changing the view and investors are worried about an intense slowdown.

Further, incessant selling by foreign investors is also spooking domestic market participants, traders said.

On a net basis, foreign institutional investors sold equities worth Rs 3,127.36 crore on Thursday, data available with stock exchanges showed.

Stock exchanges in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo plunged up to 4 per cent in their morning sessions.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,190.95 points, its largest one-day point drop in history, bringing its loss for the week to 3,225.77 points, or 11.1 per cent.

The S&P 500 has now plunged 12 per cent from the all-time high it set just a week ago.

World oil prices too tumbled by more than 4 per cent overnight as traders fretted about the impact of spreading coronavirus on crude demand, particularly from key consumer China.

Brent crude oil futures fell another 2.47 per cent to USD 50.45 per barrel early in the day.

The rupee depreciated 28 paise to 71.89 against the US dollar in morning session.

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