Rs 8,000 Cr Liquor Bonds via Employees PF Fund?

The AP government, which had already mortgaged the projected income through sale of liquor, is reportedly planning to draw a loan of Rs 8,000 crore through the same process again.

The Option party in the state, TDP alleged that there is information that the YCP government had sent messages to the electricity department to keep the employees’ PF and other deposits of the electricity corporation ready to buy the liquor bonds to be issued within 10 days. The government is planning to use these funds to buy the liquor bonds as no private players had shown interest in purchasing them.

The funds deposited towards the PF of Transco, Genco, EPDPCL and SPDPCL would be utilized to buy the liquor bonds.

The Transco and Genco finance directors received the information regarding readying the funds for the purchase of liquor bonds.

There would be some benefit to the employees if their PF funds or the corporation funds are invested in bonds which have good income and rating but the YCP government reportedly is forcing the power employees to buy the bonds even when these liquor bonds are not having any rating and are insecured. On purchase of the liquor bonds, the funds from all the power employees PF accounts would get transferred to the AP Beverages Corporation, which would then allegedly be used by the CM for Navaratnalu schemes.

It is pertinent to note that the government secured an income of 9.6 per cent through release of liquor bonds during the first time. Now, it has dropped to 8.5%, the employees said.

Usually, when any company or government sources issue bonds, private investors buy them in bulk. However, none of them turned up and the YCP government has decided that the bonds should be bought by the government employees’ funds.

Opposition leaders says that, the EPF money should not be invested in liquor bonds, according to the rules. Further, only 10 per cent of these bonds should be invested in secured bonds/ listed companies shares but Jagan government is utilizing 100 per cent of these funds to buy the liquor bonds.

The power employees expressed suspicion that the debt broker, Trust Capital, which is acting as the arranger for the issue of bonds, is misleading the SEBI. Usually, the duties of an ‘arranger’ should be given to a company which has secured L1 status. When tenders were called for the first time, Trust Capital became the L1 and since then, the government had been taking up the process of bond issuance. Retaining the same organization for the same process of issuing bonds could also mean embezzlement of funds, said a TDP leader.