New Delhi: Purti group on said it has not defaulted on loans from state-run IREDA and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari was never involved in its day-to-day operations, as Opposition demanded the Minister's resignation over CAG flagging this issue.
"We have not defaulted on repaying the loan or indulged in any misutilisation or misappropriation of the amount. The audit report is on lapses or irregularities in procedures followed by IREDA," Purti Sakhar Karkhana Ltd (PSKL) Managing Director Sudhir Dive told reporters here.
The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) mentions that in April last year IREDA management had informed the CAG that PSKL settled its entire loan outstanding as per OTS (one time settlement) norms, he added.
"While settling the repayment of the loan as per the OTS norms with IREDA, PSKL furnished all necessary documents and replied to all their queries to their satisfaction," he said.
Earlier this month, the government's auditor had flayed state-run IREDA for "violation of financial guidelines" in connection with a Rs 48.65-crore loan to the Nagpur-based PSKL for which its promoters and directors including union Minister of Road Transport, Highways & Shipping Nitin Gadkari had given "personal guarantee".
PSKL was sanctioned a term loan of Rs 48.65 crore by Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA) in March 2002 for setting up a 22 MW bagasse based co-generation power project at Nagpur in Maharashtra.
On Gadkari's role in the firm, Dive said the Minister was Chairman of PSKL since 2000 to 2011 and resigned in 2011. As Chairman he was not involved in the day-to-day working of the firm, as there was a full time MD, he added.
Proceedings in the Rajya Sabha were disrupted today by repeated adjournments following uproar by Congress demanding the resignation of Gadkari following the CAG report.
Dive declined to comment on the issue.
However, a source said that if opposition moves a notice on the issue, the Minister will reply on the floor of the house and clear his stand.
"He has nothing to hide. There has not been any financial irregularities," the source added.
On the charge that IREDA could recover only Rs 71.35 crore out of the total amount of Rs 84.12 crore, Dive said the firm paid over 84 per cent compared to an average recovery of 46.75 per cent of the total outstanding amount.
"The audit was conducted on 29 firms, which had settled their loans through the OTS route. The recovery is low to an extent that not a single rupee of interest has been recovered in 20 cases and in 9 cases the principal was also not recovered," Dive said.
On disbursement of 25 per cent of the loan amount in the first installment violating IREDA's financial guidelines, Dive said it is IREDA's internal checks and balances and "how can PSKL be aware of them."
On the charge that IREDA's independent Director could not attend PSKL's Board meeting, Dive said all due processes were followed in calling the Board members for meetings.
In 2004, IREDA had changed its Nominee Director and since then till the repayment of the loan, the Director had attended all the Board meetings, he added.
On the charge that IREDA continued to fund PSKL's project even though other lenders had classified the loan as NPA, he said: "The financing was not through the consortium of banks and each bank or financial institution was free to take an independent decision on the loan classification."
Its was the independent commercial decision of IREDA to fund the project, Dive added.
In its report, the CAG observed that though other lenders of the borrower company, i.E. A consortium of cooperative banks and State Bank of Indore had informed IREDA in a meeting in October 2006 that they had classified the borrower?s account as NPA, IREDA rescheduled in October 2006 its loan to facilitate the borrower to complete the project.
The project was commissioned in March 2007 and in the same month IREDA classified the loan as NPA, the report said.
