Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is among the few erudite politicians. He also has to his side the experiences that went with governance of the nation from its apex, apart from being the governor of RBI, academician and IMF functionary. Above all, he’s a well-meaning and patriotic citizen. When he speaks, the nation listens despite the series of scams that clouded his tenure as PM. His latest take, in sum, is that key institutions of the nation are losing their sheen and robustness due to large-scale governmental interferences on the one side and gross malpractices on the other.
Dr Singh’s reference was mainly to the situations in which RBI and CBI have fallen into. RBI is seen to be dictated to by the Modi government, and the CBI as a “caged parrot” has lost its veneer of dignity long ago. To which were added recent scandalous situations. Two of its top functionaries are facing probe into allegations of bribe-taking, acts of scheming against each other etc, all of which have happened during the term of the present NDA government. These are shameful situations that will have adverse bearing on the well-being of the nation. RBI is in the docks for allowing situations that led to lakhs of crores of funds from public sector and other banks to be siphoned away by a bunch of unscrupulous businessmen. Many of them are refusing to pay back their loans even as they have the proven capacity to repay — thereby forming themselves into a gang of willful defaulters. Clearly, institutions are losing their strengths due principally to interferences into their functioning by the political class that wields power at the Centre and in states too. They also showed a lack of courage to stem the rot.
The governmental machinery as a whole is found wanting in maintaining their institutional strengths – with the spectre of corruption growing by the day. While the Congress-led UPA periods were the worst, the scenario has only marginally changed during the present NDA period. Dr Manmohan Singh himself cannot escape the blame for what’s a denouement of the UPA era. Much of the bad loans, or non-performing assets the public sector banks have loaded themselves with were disbursed during the NDA period. The Modi government has not done a good job in speeding up investigations and getting back the lost money. It’s high time for effective and speedy remedial actions.
