The Cabinet endorsed two bills Friday to dispose of 27.8 trillion yen in debts amassed by the now-defunct Japanese National Railways, including a controversial measure to have Japan Railway group firms bear 360 billion yen.
Under the bill to dispose of debts held by JNR Settlements Corp., the government will transfer 15.8 trillion yen in debts with interest from JNR Settlements to its general account and exempt 8.3 trillion yen in noninterest-bearing debts from the public corporation. The other bill prescribes the operations of Japan Railway Construction Public Corp., which will take over pension costs and the stocks of the JR group firms currently held by JNR Settlements, which will be dissolved Oct. 1.
Out of the 770 billion yen needed to make up for a reserve shortage in the mutual pension fund for former JNR employees, the seven JR group carriers will bear 360 billion yen and Japan Railway Construction Public Corp. will shoulder 410 billion yen. The shortage occurred when the mutual pension fund was merged into the Employees' Pension Insurance scheme in 1997.