Somasroy Chakraborty: Soft loans will be hard on the exchequer | Business Standard
Somasroy Chakraborty: Soft loans will be hard on the exchequer | Business Standard
Online comments posted on October 24, 2013:
M G WARRIER, Mumbai
Online comments posted on October 24, 2013:
Finance Minister Chidambaram had
made an unqualified statement that ‘the government will not dilute its
shareholding in state-run banks and infuse the budgeted Rs14,000 crore for bank
capitalisation through preferential allotment’ at the meeting of bankers. This should
be welcomed by public sector banks as a supportive gesture at a time when they
are being ‘whipped’ for not giving small loans, for high NPAs and not being
fast enough in ensuring financial inclusion. As owner, GOI has the
responsibility to ensure that PSBs are adequately capitalized.
Post-nationalisation, there is a
general feeling that all ‘difficult’ jobs, such as opening branches in rural
areas, giving small loans to low income group borrowers, sustaining loss making
industrial houses and public sector undertakings, ensuring flow of credit in
politically sensitive geographical areas etc have become the exclusive
previlege of public sector banks.
Private sector banks have been
enjoying lending to the creamy layer of the clientele in urban and metropolitan
areas. They were provided, for a long time, bye-pass routes even for achieving
their priority sector targets.
On the same day, Financial services
secretary Rajiv Takru minced no words to clarify the government’s intentions
when he said ‘the government will infuse additional capital in the banks in the
last quarter of this fiscal, based on their performance in the concessionaire
loans, which banks are offering in the festival season’. The secretary has
nicely re-invented the ‘priority sector’ idea to suit the wishes of present
generation.
When can we expect public sector
banks becoming professional in their approach with internal expertise and
freedom to manage their manpower and business, with a ‘level playing field’,
competing with their private sector counterparts, which was one of the ideas
behind bank nationalisation, in the first place?
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