Modi: Firm on bringing back fugitive economic offenders
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 18
Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured here on Thursday that the government was committed to bringing back economic offenders. “In our attempt to bring back fugitives (economic offenders), we relied on policies and law and also used diplomatic channels. The message is very clear — return to your country. We are continuing these efforts,” the PM said at the concluding session of “Creating Synergies for Seamless Credit Flow and Economic Growth”.
The Centre had enacted the Fugitive Economic Offenders’ Act in 2018 and a Mumbai court had used its provisions to declare Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi as the first two “economic offenders”. Mallya is believed to have fled the country in 2016 and Modi in 2018.
The PM said Rs 5 lakh crore had been recovered from defaulters through “proactive steps” and the recently set up National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd will help clear the banking sector’s stressed assets of Rs 2 lakh crore.
Addressing a meet on the pharma sector, the PM said the pandemic brought this sector into sharp focus. But the “one frontier that India has to conquer” is to make India self-reliant by domestic manufacture of key ingredients for vaccines and medicines, most of which are imported from China. During the two Covid waves, “we found that this was one issue that needs much more attention”.
Another area that the PM flagged was traditional medicines that have registered a sharp rise in exports – export of herbal medicines is over Rs 10,000 crore.
