Lucknow: Lashing out National Monetization Pipeline (NMP) scheme of the Union government, Congress said that big states like Uttar Pradesh would be the worst sufferer of it. The national highways, powerhouses, sports stadiums, airports and railway stations of UP have been put for sale in UP.
The national general secretary and in charge of Rajasthan, Ajay Maken while talking to media in Lucknow on Tuesday, said that recently the Union government has announced to privatize public properties of 20 departments. Six of these departments have significant properties in UP. He said that UP would be the worst sufferer of NMP where eight national highways, airports, railway station of Prayagraj, centre of Sports Authority of India (SAI) in Lucknow, entire network of BSNL and Bharat Fiber may be handed over to private hands. He said that government is hell bent upon handing over precious properties to its industrialists friends to such extent that the airport of Varanasi has been valued at Rs 500 crore only.
Raising fingers over NMP, Maken said that the lands for these public establishments were acquired by the state governments and handed over to centre. However, the state governments were not taken into confidence before privatizing these properties. He asked whether the state government would get any share in the money received after monetization of these properties. The Congress general secretary said that the party has formed a committee under the chairmanship of senior leader Digvijay Singh that will form a strategy to fight against NMP.
He said that the Chhattisgarh government of Congress has decided to take part in the bidding of these public properties and take it over. He said that this would be done to save jobs and public money. Maken said that the trade unions of government owned mills put for sale have been opposing NMP.
