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UTI muddle rocks Rajya Sabha yet again

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

A determined Opposition forced the adjournment of the Rajya Sabha for the day in the post-lunch session when its members led by Congress party member Manmohan Singh alleged that Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha was misleading the House over the UTI issue.

The adjournment came in the wake of a protracted procedural wrangle between the government and the Opposition with chairman Krishna Kant appearing at a loss to restore order amidst the rising decibel levels in the house.

The finance minister, however, began replying to the UTI debate and contended that in April this year, its redemption had risen to Rs 4.73 billion and 'it was not a surprising figure'.

He said in May, the total redemption of UTI had been Rs 36.82 billion, of which 15.57 billion were redemptions of individuals amounting to 42 per cent.

The rest of the amount was attributable to non-individuals out of which the public sector banks' share was Rs 8.11 billion.

"I just want to make the point that nobody has run away with the money," Sinha underscored, adding that the private banks share was Rs 1.50 billion.

The finance minister emphasised that " if there has been insider information (into the UTI investment) then it should be looked into " and pointed out that a three-member committee had been constituted to look into UTI affairs.

He said that if one compared the performance of other mutual funds, it would be seen that their performance too was even below that of UTI.

This, he claimed, was because they are based on equity whose declining value was reflected in the stock markets.

Referring to the performance of Yahoo. Com and Amazon.com, Sinha said their performance in Nasdaq was a high of $237.50 (high) $ 18 (low ) and $ 106.91 (high) and $ 8.37 (low ), respectively.

"The performance of these tech stocks by itself is not a crime," Sinha asserted and pointed out the fluctuations of their equity in stock markets was nothing unusual.

He said that the UTI's investments amounted to Rs 10.73 billion, of which Rs 3 billion was in debentures and the remaining Rs 7.73 billion through equity.

"Never before has UTI made such a large negotiated deal which had a five-year lock-in period," Sinha contended.

But it was at this juncture that the CPM's Jiban Roy angrily interrupted the minister and his refrain was taken up by his party colleague Nilotpal Basu.

Congress members Ambika Soni and Oscar Fernandes were seen attracting the chairman's attention that their senior party colleague Manmohan Singh wanted to speak on a point of order.

However, the finance minister said he was not yielding (to Singh) and BJP member Sanghapriya Gautam asked the Opposition members to sit down.

This triggered further pandemonium.

Chairman Krishna Kant told Manmohan Singh that he could do nothing when the finance minister refused to yield to the senior Congress member.

The shouting started all over again and the chairman adjourned the House for the day.

Earlier, when the House reconvened at 1400 hours, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee informed the Rajya Sabha that if necessary, he was willing for a probe into the Unit Trust of India controversy.

He also affirmed that the Prime Minister's Office had nothing to do with UTI fiasco.

Earlier in the day, the House was adjourned twice on a different issue when a determined opposition led by Congress demanded a statement from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his offer to resign and the alleged involvement of Prime Minister's Office in the UTI fiasco.

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