Maharashtra government has decided to create a non-banking financial services (NBFS) institution to use the surplus money lying with state-run corporations.
“According to estimates, about Rs 40,000 crore are lying idle in the bank accounts of these corporations. This money is not being used and the corporations keep getting interest from banks,” said state Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.
“We will create a non-banking financial services institution to which this money can be transferred. This way the government will not have to pay high interest rates to banks and the surplus money of corporations will be used to meet urgent needs. The corporations will receive interest from the government (which will borrow money from this NBFS),” he said.
The government is expected to save around Rs. 750 crore annually on interest with this, due to the differential of interest rates.
Maharashtra has a debt burden of more than Rs. 3 lakh crore and pays around Rs. 24,000 crore in interest annually.
Co-operation minister Chandrakant Patil had said that the government was thinking of ways to raise Rs. 2,000 crore to provide an interest-free loan to the sugar industry.
