40 YEARS AGO

How Considerate Is Our Govt!

Of Course, to Some People

AND one of them is the Indian Iron and Steel Company. This company had, ten years ago, borrowed Rs 10.18 crores from the government. The Indian tax-payer should be happy to know that the company has just paid back to the government Rs 5.18 crores of this loan.

The tax-payer should feel further happy to know that the government has decided to enter into a new agreement with the company to get back the rest of the loan. The government is in no hurry about it --- after all, ten years have already passed since the company took the loan and another seven years or so hardly matter. Let the IISCO take its time and meanwhile, the tax-payers can always be made to pay --- not only for development but also to give further loans on easy terms to any Indian monopolist who requires it.

According to the new agreement specifying the terms and conditions of repayment, the balance of Rs five crores will be paid by the company over a phased period and the payment will be completed by March 31,1972.

The government has been still more considerate in regard to the interest on the loan.

The interest on the outstanding principal amount of Rs five crores will be payable with effect from april 1, 1965, and it will be paid in half-yearly instalments.

The government has very kindly agreed not to press for the payment of interest from July 1, 1958, to March 31, 1961. Reason? The expanded production for which the loan was given had not been achieved fully till then. How different from the treatment meted out to, say, peasants in various parts of the country betterment levy long before the water reaches their fields and when, in fact, the canal which is to bring the water is still only a line in the blue-print of the project.

After writing off the interest from July 1, 1958, to March 31, 1961, the government has, however decided to charge the company with interest for the rest of the period. And how? Simple interest for this period at the bank rate current during the period. Calculated at Rs 1.78 crores, the government has been gracious enough to allow the company to pay this amount also over a phased period ending March 31, 1972.

In addition to all this, the government has given the solemn assurance that so long as there is no default in any payment by the company, the government will not exercise its powers under the Companies Act to convert the outstanding balance into equity shares.

After thus settling with IISCO, the government is new reported to be negotiating a similar agreement with the Tata Iron and Steel Company which had also borrowed the same amount as IISCO ten years ago from the government.   

It is good to be living in India just now --- not for the ordinary people, of course. But for others, if you have cheated on income tax or other taxes, you are told that you can pay part of it and keep the rest. If you have hoarded black money violating all the laws and fleecing the people, you are again told, disclose part of it, keep the rest. And if you borrow money from the government and just sit tight without paying it paying it back, you will be given as much time as you want to pay it in instalments with plenty of concessions on interest thrown in. Indeed a welfare state which has closest to its heart the welfare of the Tatas, IISCO and the like

--- People’s Democracy, October 10, 1965