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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | UPA2: Praful richest and Mamata poorest minister by Nidhi Sharma

UPA2: Praful richest and Mamata poorest minister by Nidhi Sharma

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published Published on Nov 23, 2010   modified Modified on Nov 23, 2010

The income and asset details furnished by ministers to Prime Minister’s Office for 2009-10 have some surprising claims. Textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran, whose family owns a media empire, is worth just Rs 6.87 crore. His assets include a Mercedes E class valued at Rs 8.10 lakh and a Toyota Innova at Rs 12.24 lakh.

He is not the only who has modest assets. Minister of new and renewable energy Farooq Abdullah earns a paltry Rs 100 from two kanals (equivalent to 1,011.714 square metres) of land in Srinagar. What is intriguing is that he earns not even a single penny from 45 kanals (22,764 square metres) of orchard. Dr Abdullah has refused to give details about the market value of land and bungalows he owns, making his overall worth just Rs 2.5 lakh.

Thanks to his non-disclosure, he is poorer than railway minister Mamata Banerjee , who has conscientiously declared gold jewllery and all other possessions worth Rs 10.28 lakh.

Dr Abdullah has refused to spell out any cash certificates, ornaments and other possessions of his family, including his wife: “Since my family is away in London from April 1990, I have no knowledge about the items shown as cash certificates/ ornaments. After ascertaining the facts, information will be made available.”

There are quite a few surprises in the 450 pages of information disclosed by PMO under Right to Information (RTI) Act to activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal. Former telecom minister A Raja, whose role in 2G spectrum allocation is under the scanner, is worth Rs 1.95 crore. He is poorer than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (Rs 4.86 crore), law minister M Veerappa Moily (Rs 3.07 crore) and several others. HRD minister Kapil Sibal , whose net worth is Rs 29.22 crore, has declared Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Sonata, Suzuki Jeep, Enfield motorcycle and Reva electric car, among other possessions.

Though PMO has made it mandatory for all Cabinet ministers to declare income and assets as soon as they assume office, there is no set format of such a declaration. For instance, many Cabinet ministers like Krishna Tirath have not declared the net worth of gold jewellery and silver owned by them, restricting it just to the weight.

Minority affairs minister Salman Khurshid and his family have shares in cold storage at Pitaura in Kaimganj, Uttar Pradesh. However, he has refrained from mentioning the exact worth in rupees of this share restricting himself to percentage share statistics only.

Minister of state Srikant Jena, with a declared income and asset value of Rs 64.16 lakh, has not mentioned any value for over four acres owned by him. Similarly, minister of overseas Indian affairs Vayalar Ravi owns assets worth Rs 18.68 lakh but has not mentioned the worth of 30 cents (1,214 square metres) of land and 900 grams of gold.

“Ministers are not filing their asset information on time. I had applied for information under RTI Act on September 10. I got the details more than two months later on November 18. When I did not receive the reply after the mandatory 30-days, I had gone for appeal and PMO sought more time for furnishing this information. The details from ministers were hurriedly gathered and sent across,” RTI activist Agrawal said.


The Economic Times, 23 November, 2010, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/UPA2-Praful-richest-and-Mamata-poorest-minister/articleshow/6973258.cms


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