No loan waiver for capitalists: Jaitley

NEW DELHI: The government has not waived any loans of big NPA defaulters, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday dismissing rumour that loans of capitalists are being written off by banks.

In a blog, Jaitley said that over the last few days, a rumour is being propagated regarding waiver of loans of capitalists by banks.

Observing that the time has come for the nation to be apprised of facts in this regard, he said one should ask at whose behest the loans, which have turned NPAS were disbursed between 2008 and 2014 by public sector banks.

“The public needs to ask the rumour mongers at whose behest or under whose pressure were such loans disbursed. They should also be asked that when these debtors delayed in repayment of their loans and interest thereon to Public Sector Banks, what decision was taken by the then Government,” the finance minister said.

Jaitley said that rather than taking a firm decision against debtors the then government relaxed the loan classification norms to keep defaulters as non-npa account holders.

The asset quality review (AQR) carried out for clean and fully provisioned balance- sheets in 2015 high revealed NPA, the finance minister said.

As a result, he said, loans of about Rs 4,54,466 crore, which was fit to be NPA and were under the carpet, were recognised after intensive scrutiny under AQR.

“Government has not waived any loans of big NPA defaulters ...,” he said, adding under the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, cases have been instituted in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for timebound recovery from 12 largest defaulters.

These 12 defaulters account for non-performing assets totalling Rs 1.75 lakh crore.

Cases for the recovery of NPA dues from the assets of these big defaulters are under way at various stages.

Jaitley further said with the object of increase credit offtake and creation of jobs; the government has taken “the big decision” of capitalising stateowned banks.