PSBs had ‘worst phase’ under Singh, Rajan: FM
Public sector banks (PSBs) had the “worst phase” under the “combination” of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and exRBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, and giving the ailing banks a “lifeline” was her primary duty now, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.
The PSBs have been grappling with bad loans and the government has been taking measures to address the issue. In Aug., the government announced upfront capital infusion to the tune of Rs 70,000 crore into the PSBs . Besides, 10 public sector banks are being consolidated into four.
Delivering a lecture at the Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Sitharaman said, “While economists can take a view of what prevails today or prevailed years ago, but I will also want answers for the time when Rajan was in the governor’s post speaking about the banks, for which today to give a lifeline @MOHANGURUSWAMY
Gross NPAs of Indian banks went up from 2.60L crs in June 2014 to 9.88L crs in June 2019 Nirmala Sitharaman
is the primary duty of the Finance Minister. And the lifeline-kind of an emergency has not come overnight. I do respect Raghuram Rajan as a great scholar who chose to be in the RBI at a time when the economy was all buoyant,” she said during the lecture organised by the Deepak and Neera Raj Centre on Indian Economic Policies, Columbia University.
Asked about the ex-RBI
governor’s comments during a recent lecture at Brown University in which he had apparently mentioned that in its first term, the Modi government had not done better on the economy because the government was extremely centralised and the leadership does not appear to have a consistent articulated vision on how to achieve economic growth, the minister said instead there were major issues with bank loans during Rajan’s tenure as the RBI head.
Responding to the question, Sitharaman further pointed out that if there is a feeling that there’s been a centralised leadership now, “I’d like to say that very democratised leadership led to a whole lot of corruption. Very democratised leadership. The PM, after all is the first among equals in any cabinet”. Arora, one of the former directors of the PMC bank, for questioning. — PTI