Need to hike borrowing limit for power sector: Parekh panel

05 Mar 2013 Evaluate

A proposal, is being made for increasing the sectoral exposure limit of commercial banks and financial institutions to the power sector from 15% to 20% in order to channelise liquidity into the sector. The proposal is being discussed by high level committee on financing infrastructure headed by Deepak Parekh.

Parekh panel has underlined the need for making adequate provisions for mitigating investors’ risks to augment investment in power sector.

As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines, the exposure ceiling limits of commercial banks to the power sector are 15% of capital funds in case of a single borrower and 40% for a borrower group. The decision to increase the sectoral cap has to be taken by the RBI.

Increasing sectoral exposure limit to the power sector would enable the availability of more funds to the sector which is primarily required to meet working capital and debt re-payment needs of State Electricity Distribution Utilities (Discoms), power generation and transmission companies.

However, the commercial banks would find it difficult to agree to this proposal as increasing the borrowing limit would eventually increase the interest and the principal amount and without fuel supply agreements and viable power purchase agreements it might get difficult for the players in the power sector to service these obligations, thus elevating the risk of non-performing assets.

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