20/11/ 2013
The Communist Party of
India has sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention in stalling sale
of gold coins from post offices as “it is against the Finance Ministry’s
directive to restrict the sale and import of gold.”
In a letter to Dr.
Singh, party general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy said “high gold imports and
specifically the import of gold coins had surely led to a burden on our import
bill.”
Referring to Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s statement
on ban on import of gold coins and medallions, Mr. Reddy said in his letter:
“Despite the ban, I am surprised to see that while the Finance Minister holds a
specific view on import of gold coins, the Ministry of Communications and
Information Technology holds a divergent view on the same.”
The
Department of Posts had floated a tender for “supply of gold coins on sale,”
which concludes on November 27, Mr. Reddy said.
Quoting Mr. Chidambaram as also saying that “banks were told to
strictly follow guidelines on gold imports,” Mr. Reddy said the decision of the
Communications and Information Technology Ministry (to sell gold coins) went
against the decision of the Finance Ministry.
“If banks selling gold coins are strictly being discouraged, how
could post offices selling gold coins be encouraged?” he sought to know.
Import of gold coins and floating of tenders by the Postal
Department “implies encouraging the import of gold coins once again.”
‘Why
no uniform view ?’
“With a heavy import bill burden already on the economy, why is
the government not having a uniform view regarding the sale of gold coins” Mr.
Reddy asked.
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