New Delhi: Hitting out the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not taking timely action against the directors of Frost International which is alleged to have defrauded banks to the tune of Rs 3,592 crore, the Congress on Wednesday claimed that banks frauds have increased manifold during the regime of Modi government since it came into power from 2014 onward.
In a shocking revelation, Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill has claimed that cases of banks frauds in BJP government have rose to Rs32,868 in the last six years and it led to the loss of above Rs 2.70 lakh crore of public money.
While talking to reporters, Shergill said, "The Prime Minister had assumed office with the promise of recovering 'black money' within the first 100 days of his government. However, in complete insult and betrayal of the mandate of the people, the Modi government has comfortably overseen siphoning-off of Rs 2 lakh crore of public money' from India along with the red carpet exit accorded to 31 plus fugitives/willful defaulters who are now enjoying BJP gifted 'ache-din' on foreign soil."
Giving year-wise details of bank frauds, the Congress has claimed that in the year 2014-15, when Modi became PM of the country, there were 4,639 cases of bank frauds amounting to Rs 19,455 crore. In the year 2015-16, the cases of bank frauds rose to 4,693 amounting to Rs 18,698 crore, which rose to 5,076 cases in 2016-17 amounting to Rs 23,933 crore.
The cases of banks frauds increased further to 5,916 in the year 2017-18 amounting to Rs 41,167 crore and it rose to 6,801 cases in the year 2018-19 and the total public money siphoned off by fugitives/willful defaulters rose to Rs 71,500 crore in the same year.
However, in the first year of the second spell of Modi government witnessed 1,058 lesser cases of bank frauds from the previous year, but the amount increased to Rs 95,760 crore, The total cases of bank frauds in 2019-20 (between April 1 to September 30) stood at 5,743.
Raising questions over the government's intent of building a $5 trillion economy, the Congress leader also accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of waiving off bad loans and emptying public savings to the tune of Rs 5 lakh crore.
Blaming government for "shielding" Frost International, Shergill has alleged that it was the government that prevented the lodging of complaint in the scam.
"When the consortium of lending banks had authorised registration of complaint on June 15, 2019, why did it take more than seven months to register a complaint? Was someone in the BJP government preventing the registration of complaint?" Shergill questioned.
"When the PSBs having government nominees on board were aware that the company is unable to return the money, why did it take them a year to request the MHA to issue a lookout notice?" he said, adding that why the lookout notice was delayed.
"Despite issuance of LOC on January 18, 2019, why and on whose directions in the BJP government did the investigating agencies not register a case till January 19, 2020 for an entire year against the suspected offenders who remain untraceable till date?" the Congress leader said.
Meanwhile, the Congress has hailed the decision of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for not granting the tender for manufacture of diesel-powered submarines to the Adani HSL joint venture.
Commenting on the decision, Shergill said, "We congratulate Rajnath Singh that he did not give Rs 45,000 crore submarine project to Adani Defence, the Congress has raised this issue but he has kept nation above friends, this is because we had raised the red flag."