‘Nobody wanted to blame the Prime Minister and the blame was placed on the ministers’ – Shri. P. Sainath

New Delhi: All India Bank Employees’ Association invited Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Shri P Sainath, to address the attendees at the AIBEA’s ongoing National Seminar series and share his perspective on the theme People’s Money for People’s Welfare.

Shri. P. Sainath elaborated on the state the country is currently in politically, legally, economically and culturally, and the possible options before people as middle-class citizens.

The speaker drew attention towards a current scenario in the country which is raising questions. In the new cabinet, the Finance minister has not been changed because she has been in sync with the Corporate World. Agriculture portfolio remains with Mr. Tomar as he did not budge to the farmers and sides with Ambani and Adani. Harsh Vardhan was removed because it was projected that he was responsible for creating embarrassment to the Government in the second wave..

‘Nobody wanted to blame the Prime Minister and the blame was placed on the ministers,’ said Shri. P. Sainath. Questioning the PM Care fund he added, “the Trustees of this formidable PM Cares Fund are Finance Minister, Home Minister, Defence Minister and the Chairman is the Prime Minister. Every law has been broken for this PM Cares Fund. “

He further pinpointed, that the government stated for over a year, that it is a private fund, administered by the Ministers, and had it been a governmental organisation, it would have been audited by CAG, but being private it was audited by a private auditor. However, recently they stated that it is a public organization. With INR 3076 Crores spent from PM Cares Fund, it will be enough to buy another 0.20 billion doses of vaccines. Simplifying, it means 90% vaccination requirement of our country could have been taken care of with this amount itself. Which actually, did not happen. With this Rs.23,000 Crores, 18 AIIMS could be established across the country.

Talking about prevailing inequality he highlighted that Adani’s wealth has grown up over 400% and Ambani’s wealth grew up by over 129% while the GDP shrank by over 24%. Further, in the same scenario, tens of thousands lost their jobs and millions walked back home as they were starving, 23 health-sector billionaires added Rs. 5 billion every day. Ambani’s personal wealth is just under Punjab’s Gross Domestic Product.

According to the Government of India, 3.3 lakh farmers died in 2011 by committing suicide. From 2011, States in the country stated that there is zero farmer suicide. “Poverty figures are also false,” said the speaker. Stating the effect of PM Fasal Bima Yojana he said, that in the first 24 months of PM Fasal Bima Yojana, 18 insurance companies made a profit of Rs.15,795 Crores as per RTI data and it is Rs. 21 Crores a day. And all the insurers are private companies.

Shri. P. Sainath concluded by saying, “we are not just in the midst of the present health pandemic but we are also in a pandemic of our own making of neo-liberal policies that are cynical and if we cannot fight those policies, we cannot fight against privatisation of public sector banks”.  As the seminar series continues the AIBEA is unfolding the sustaining unreasonable policies and biased inclination of the government. The association has unravelled the truth wherein it is not just the banking system but many other sectors that are facing the blows of privatization.