Finance Minister Arun Jaitley blames UPA's lending for NPA rise
Arun Jaitley Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday blamed aggressive lending by banks under UPA regime for rise in bad loans. He then defended the write-offs by public sector banks (PSBs), saying they do not lead to loan waivers and the exercise helps lenders clean up their balance sheets and achieve taxation efficiency.
Commenting on reports that the country's 21 state-owned banks wrote-off Rs 3.16 lakh crore of loans in four years of the BJP government and made recoveries of Rs 44,900 crore of written-off loans, Jaitley in a blog said "technical write-offs" are resorted to by banks as per the RBI guidelines. "Technical write-offs are resorted by banks as per RBI guidelines. However, this does not lead to any loan waiver. Recovery of loans continues rigorously by banks. In fact the defaulting management of most insolvent companies has been removed under the IBC," the finance minister said.
He said public sector banks have recovered Rs 36,551 crore of bad loans during April-June quarter of the current financial year as compared to Rs 74,562 crore recoveries made in the entire 2017-18 fiscal year.
Responding to Congress President Rahul Gandhi's allegations that demonetization converted black money into white and Rs 3.16 lakh crore of loans were written-off, Jaitley said that only 'the perverted Rahul Gandhi school of thinking' can call investment by financial institutions in IL&FS a 'scam' and suggested that the Congress President should take some 'words of wisdom' from a senior party colleague. He also termed the Congress as a "national saboteur" trying to spread disinformation about the developments in debt-ridden IL&FS.
Jaitley, in the Facebook post titled 'Lessons for Rahul Gandhi from his partyman', said that it must be remembered that the days of crony capitalism are over and the NDA government deals with challenges objectively and professionally.
"Was it a scam in 1987 when the IL&FS was promoted with the Central Bank of India having 50.5 per cent shares and the UTI having 30.5 per cent shares? Was it a scam in 2005 when LIC acquired 15 per cent stake in IL&FS and in March, 2006 when it acquired another 11.10 per cent stake in the IL&FS?
"In fact, LIC further bought 19.34 lakh shares in IL&FS in 2010. Do I start calling all these investments today 'a scam' as per 'the perverted Rahul Gandhi school of thinking?' From where has he invented a proposal of Rs 91,000 crores investment likely to take place by LIC and SBI in the IL&FS?" Jaitley remarked.
He asked Gandhi to read a letter written by senior Congress leader K V Thomas on September 20, 2018, who suggested to the government to "support IL&FS" as the company has shown notable achievements in the past in the area of infrastructure development.
Along with the Facebook post, the minister also attached a letter written by Thomas.
"It (the letter) demolishes every word that Rahul Gandhi and his coterie has been spreading. It may be advisable for Rahul Gandhi to get some 'words of wisdom' from Prof KV Thomas," Jaitley wrote.
