On the IL&FS Crisis (India)

In 2018, Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (IL&FS), a private Indian company, began defaulting to lenders. This company is known for having completed some of the biggest public infrastructure projects of India. The Government of India responded by having two major Government owned shareholders of the company, the State Bank of India and the Life Insurance Corporation of India, inject Rs. 7500 crore (US$ 1056.34 million) claiming that this would ensure “Government control” of the debt ridden company, which had debts amounting to Rs. 120,000 Crore (US$ 16901.41 million). The Government’s actions were greeted with suspicion, as IL&FS was earlier awarded the project of GIFT (Gujarat International Tech-City), and IL&FS managed to obtain a 50% stake in the project for a paltry sum and even managed to transfer the land to its name.

The other major investors of IL&FS are the Government of UAE (12%) and a “Japanese” Financial Group called ORIX. But who really runs the show at IL&FS can be ascertained from a single glance at its Mumbai headquarters, which proudly displays a well-known esoteric symbol used by The Powers That Be.