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Weaknesses in legislation to be removed to reduce NPAs
Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said Friday government has made bankers accountable while attempting to remove weaknesses in legislative systems to bring down non-performing assets worth over Rs 550 billion.
Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said Friday government has made bankers accountable while attempting to remove weaknesses in legislative systems to bring down non-performing assets worth over Rs 550 billion.
"This Rs 550 bn NPA has accumulated over a period of time. It's not accumulated yesterday. I have been trying to tackle the problem of NPA as energetically as possible," Sinha said in an interview.
Referring to five meetings with bankers, he said "I have fixed personal responsibility. We are in the process of removing the weaknesses in our legislative system in order to enable banks to do this (reduce NPAs)."
"So the situation is a matter of concern no doubt but it is not in our hand," Sinha said.
"We have already taken steps for foreclosure as far as housing loans are concerned. We have taken steps to strengthen the debt recovery tribunals," the minister said. "Lot of action has taken place and given the slowdown in the economy, perhaps the situation on the NPA front would have been much worser if we had not taken these very energetic steps," he added.
Sinha discounted claims that Indian banking sector is not transparent, saying "we have international norms for computing NPAs. We are all for transparency at the national and international levels." He, however, said there are certain sensitive issues in the financial sector where too much transparency might be counter-productive.
Bureau Report
Referring to five meetings with bankers, he said "I have fixed personal responsibility. We are in the process of removing the weaknesses in our legislative system in order to enable banks to do this (reduce NPAs)."
"So the situation is a matter of concern no doubt but it is not in our hand," Sinha said.
"We have already taken steps for foreclosure as far as housing loans are concerned. We have taken steps to strengthen the debt recovery tribunals," the minister said. "Lot of action has taken place and given the slowdown in the economy, perhaps the situation on the NPA front would have been much worser if we had not taken these very energetic steps," he added.
Sinha discounted claims that Indian banking sector is not transparent, saying "we have international norms for computing NPAs. We are all for transparency at the national and international levels." He, however, said there are certain sensitive issues in the financial sector where too much transparency might be counter-productive.
Bureau Report