RBI governor Urjit Patel to appear before Parliamentary panel

NEW DELHI: The parliamentary panel on finance is scheduled to meet RBI governor Urjit Patel on May 17 to discuss the issue of increasing non-performing assets and the action taken by the RBI in frauds involving the top management of public sector banks (PSBs).

Last month, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance met finance ministry officials to respond to queries on recent bank frauds and mounting NPAs. As the ministry had directed most of its queries to the RBI, the committee decided to ask Patel to appear before it on May 17 to respond to the queries.

“There are many issues on the top of the agenda, but the main is rising NPAs and corruption cases. There has been a steep rise in NPAs, and most of the public sector banks have posted losses despite capital infusion from the Central government,” a finance ministry official told The New Indian Express.

Fraud-hit Punjab National Bank has reported that its net bad debt assets have gone up to 11.2 per cent. Dena Bank’s NPAs were about 12 per cent, UCO Bank has ended fiscal 2018 with net NPAs of 13 per cent. Other banks, such as IDBI Bank and United Bank, that had net NPAs of 12-16 per cent as of December 2017, are yet to declare their March quarter results.

Another issue which the committee had already raised was the steep rise in corruption cases in the banking sector. While investigative agencies are already doing their work, the committee wanted to know the plan of action of the finance ministry and the RBI.