Congress' Digvijaya Singh shoots unspecified allegation on flawed premise in Covid package

Senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijaya Singh on Thursday alleged that before giving relief to the migrant workers, Modi Government has provided Rs. 90,000 crore to power generating companies. In a tweet in Hindi, Digvijaya said, "Before giving relief to the workers, Modi has given a relief of Rs. 90,000 crore to the power generating companies. Now find out who has the most number of power generation companies." 

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on Wednesday announced a relief of Rs 90,000 crore for DISCOMs. However, the Centre has provided a relief to the power distributing companies and not power generating companies. At presents DISCOMs have to pay Rs 94 000 crores to power generation and transmission companies, and are well known to be cash-strapped across states. Due to piling up of huge debt, DISCOMS of many states are struggling to provide quality and sustained power supply. Digvijaya Singh hanging claim, over who the owners of power generation companies are, didn't go into specifics, though if the claim is meant to purport at crony capitalism, it fails as it is the DISCOMs are state-run.

'We want the benefit passed to the customers'

"DISCOMs today are facing unprecedented cash flow problems," Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while announcing the package. The Minister said the DISCOMs can utilise this fund to clear their dues to electricity generating companies and transmission firms. "We want the benefit passed to the customers…we are making it clear that these benefits should pass to the end consumers," she said.

On Wednesday, soon after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced measures taken by the government to tackle COVID-19, Digvijaya had said that the relief package for MSMEs is a welcome step but the first priority should have been relief for the workers. "It would have been appropriate if the first declaration was in the interest of the workers. Next, let us see in which category the worker falls under Modi Ji's priority."

Then the Congress leader went to say that the Modi government is "anti-labour" and it does not care for the poor and labour class. He also accused the Union Government of always taking decisions in favour of the "Corporate Sector"

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During his address to the nation on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a stimulus package totalling Rs 20 lakh crore to rescue the economy reeling under the impact of coronavirus. This amounts to nearly 10% of India's GDP.

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(With agency inputs)