New Delhi: RSP (Republican Socialist Party) today (Sep 28, 2004) asked UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government to mobilise resources by recovering thousands of crore worth of non-performing assets (NPAs) and stem corruption to strengthen public sector units, including those in the aviation sector, instead of taking the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) route.

"The Civil Aviation Ministry has announced that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) would undertake modernisation of Kolkata and Chennai airports. Why can't it do it for Delhi and Mumbai as well," asked Abani Roy, the leader of RSP, which is supporting the UPA Government from outside.

Government should mobilise resources by recovering NPAs of public sector banks to strengthen the PSUs, he said at a press conference in New Delhi.

Roy said the Government should also not allow foreign airlines' participation in the Indian carriers.

Roy also referred to a "big scam" involving embezzlement of hundreds of crore rupees in the Dhanbad coal-belt and demanded a CBI probe into it.

Th RSP leader, who has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in this regard, was accompanied by one Ramashray Singh, who claimed to have unearthed the scam alleging that a "vicious nexus" between the bureaucracy and the coal mafia had cost the national exchequer hundreds of crore of rupees since early 1980s.

Singh claimed that even Government agencies had probed the allegations and found evidence of rampant corruption in the sale of coal to private companies and declaring the sold coal as shortage. He said that several officials had already been booked under various charges but proper investigations have not been carried out to unearth the full gravity of the Scam.