Jan.
05, IIF, New Delhi : Prof. J.D. Agarwal, Professor
of Finance and Chairman, Indian Institute of Finance has
urged the Government to set up a National Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (NBRD) with a seed capital of Rs. 100
crores and a proportionate contribution from all the states
in the country. The Bank should raise capital from the
general public to have a minimum capital base of Rs. 100
crores. It should also be allowed to raise funds from
International agencies such as World Bank and Asian Development
Bank as well as Indian financial institutions and banks
to finance the states to reconstruct and develop the disaster
torn areas. The bank may consider granting loans to the
states / NGOs.
According
to Dr. Agarwal with a seed capital of Rs. 100 crores the
bank would be able to finance any natural calamity to
the extent of Rs. 1000 crores without having any burden
on treasury and public exchequer. In a period of 5 to
10 years, the bank would be capable to fund any disaster
upto Rupees ten thousand crores opines Dr. Agarwal.
According to
him, the world community had setup an International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) in 1945 to reconstruct
the World war II torn economies of the world. IBRD was
later known as World Bank and has helped economies like
Japan and erstwhile West Germany and UK to rebuild their
economies in a very short time. The same would work very
well for India if NBRD is setup.
Dr. Agarwal
says that he had made this suggestion to the then government,
when the earthquake in Bhuj caused devastation. He strongly
feels, if this bank would have been setup at that time,
it should have been financially capable enough to partially
take care of the disaster caused by Tsunami.
India
is a great country. It is a subcontinent in itself, in
the vastness of India we witness both man made and natural
disasters. Every year, we witness floods in some part
of the country and drought in another, earthquakes and
now Tsunami devastation. Instead of depending only on
PM relief fund and contingency funds setup few years back,
India need to develop a self propelling system along the
lines suggested above says Prof. Agarwal.
