Priyanka continues to question govt policies amid economic slowdown

NEW DELHI–Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday continued attacking the Central government in the wake of economic slowdown and questioned its policies to tackle the situation.

Citing a news report on Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) losing Rs 57,000 crore in the last two-and-a-half months, Priyanka stated that people trust the company and invest their hard-earned money in it.

"Common people invest their hard-earned money in LIC for future security, but the BJP government is shattering their trust by investing LIC money in loss making companies.

What kind of policy is this which has become only loss policy?" Priyanka tweeted. Her tweet comes a day after the board of directors at IDBI Bank on Thursday approved the proposal for preferential issue of capital to the government and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) totalling up to Rs 4,557 crore and Rs 4,743 crore respectively.

The decision is subject to customary regulatory approvals. On September 3, the government had approved Rs 9,300 crore capital infusion into IDBI Bank to increase the lender's capital base.

The bank needed a one-time infusion of capital to complete the exercise of dealing with its legacy book. It has already substantially cleaned up, reducing net non-performing assets from a peak of 18.8 per cent in June 2018 to 8 per cent in June 2019.

The government has announced capital infusion of Rs 70,000 into public sector banks in a bid to clean up their balance sheets which are littered with huge non-performing assets.