12 MPs ask Jay Panda to give up “Waiver” for Family Business

As BJD MP from Kendrapara, Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda took the lead to give up his canteen subsidy at the Parliament and urged all Parliamentarians to do the same, at least 12 MPs of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, wrote a letter, asking him to give up the waiver/subsidy/discount allegedly given to his family business in Odisha.

According to The Times of India report, the MPs who wrote the letter to Jay Panda, included  Mullappally Ramachandran, K C Venugopal (Congress), K N Balagopal, A Sampath, Ritabrata Banerjee (CPM), M B Rajesh (CPI) and few others. All of them are from Kerala.

They asked Mr. Panda to set a personal example by giving up all subsidies/waiver enjoyed by Indian Charge Chrome Ltd (ICCL), a company run by his family. They alleged that the firm had received a waiver/concession of around Rs 2,300 crore by IDBI, which amounts to 16.5% of IDBI’s aggregate non-performing assets (NPA) of Rs 16,000 crore. They also alleged that another company Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys (IMFA), run by Jay Panda’s family, is among the top 20 bank defaulters in the country.

They further said, “We (MPs) are ready to give up the canteen subsidy. But, that should be continued for around 8,000 beneficiaries working in Parliament house including staff, security personnel, media persons, contract employees etc.”

Meanwhile, Baijayant Panda, has rubbished the charges and said that the MPs are trying to distract from the issue by dragging in “recycled” allegations against his family-owned business.

“I was disappointed that you have tried to distract from the issue by dragging in recycled allegations against me and my relatives from decades ago, which have been refuted and clarified in public,” he said, providing a link to the post in his website. “The canteen subsidy has been attracting enormous criticism from “thousands of citizens. So, it’s our duty to rise to the occasion and say NO to it,” he added.