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Uproar over ICD scam

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, DEC. 7. The Madhya Pradesh Assembly today witnessed noisy scenes when the huge inter-corporate deposits (ICDs) scam linked with the State Industrial Development

Corporation was raised in the House during question hour.

Replying to a starred query by BJP's Dhyanendra Singh, the State Industries Minister, Kailash Chawla told the House that 56 companies had received advances under the ICD scheme of the Madhya Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (SIDC) and Rs. 371 crore still remain to be recovered from the defaulting companies.

Mr. Chawla told the House that the former State Congress Government (headed by Digvijay Singh) had failed to take any action against the defaulters, the State BJP Government has initiated action, issued notices, and started criminal proceedings against the defaulters.

The Minister told the House that even the report of the Auditor General pointed that irregularities were deliberately committed to extend special favours to some people. He said that at the time of extending loans, the financial condition of the borrowers was not taken into consideration. Even the State's Advocate General had advised the Government to launch criminal proceedings, Mr. Chawla said.

At one juncture, the State Minister, Gopal Bhargava, was even heard saying that advances to the tune of even Rs. 100 crore were sanctioned by SIDC on the basis of some jottings on cigarette wrappers. When Mr. Chawla was still in the process of replying to the starred question, Congress party's, Stayadev Katare, raised a strong objection saying that the

Minister was being allowed to speak for a long time. Another Congress MLA, Arif Aqueel, also joined Mr.Katare and there was a loud protest from his side. The Congress MLAs went to the extent of pointing out that the Industries Minister was trying to place every thing on record.

The Speaker, Ishwardas Rohani, took strong view of this and said that the House was meeting not to bring things on record but to take up issues in public interest.

When contacted today, the Managing Director of SIDC, Raghav Chandra told The Hindu that some companies have settled their inter-corporate deposits. He said that

of the 56 companies that were given deposits, 14 had already settled their accounts.

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Uproar over ICD scam

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