Times gone when people on other side of aisle used BSNL as cash cow: Ashwani Vaishnaw in LS

The blame game began when Congress leader Manish Tewari asked Goyal about steps the government has taken to help start-ups graduate to the unicorn grade.

Tewari pointed out that India does not figure in the start-ups ranking and said: “Obviously there is still a long road to travel. What exactly is the government doing to ensure that our start-ups, which are deserving, can actually be financed to an extent where they can graduate to the unicorn grade as quickly as possible?”

Asserting that the start-up schemes started only in 2016, Goyal said, “You should look deeply at what and when the UPA did something for start-ups or unicorns. The party (Congress) was in power for so many years; why did you not begin work on the start-up scheme and promote them? You had left that work for (Narendra) Modi-ji…”

He added, “Start-ups are prone to failures is a very high probability, though I must say (their) success rate in India is relatively higher than the rest of the world…”

Tewari and other Congress MPs stood up and protested that Goyal did not reply to the question, but tried to politicise the issue, as BJP benches backed him by thumping desks.

The Start-up India Seed Fund Scheme has been approved for four years starting from 2021-22 and is being implemented with a corpus of Rs 945 crore. It is aimed at providing financial assistance to start-ups for proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialisation.

Similar scenes were repeated when BJP member G M Siddeshwara asked why BSNL services continued to be poor in both rural and urban areas. Vaishnaw said, “BSNL went through a very bad phase of its life, primarily because of certain political parties, especially during the UPA government, when a lot of funds from BSNL were diverted…” But, he added the Modi government has approved a “very large package of Rs 1,64,000 crore” for BSNL’s revival.

Congress MPs protested and Tewari asked the minister to “substantiate” his statement, but Vaishnaw went on explaining how the package will “totally transform BSNL”.

When Congress MP Jasbir Singh Gill asked about “theft of data ”from BSNL connections, Vaishnaw said data was much costlier during UPA’s time.