FM warns corporate bigwigs against willful defaults

19 Mar 2013 Evaluate

Warning the corporate promoters against willful defaults, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said it is the duty of the promoter to bring in additional capital if company gets into trouble. The statement comes in reference to the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines owned by Vijay Mallya, where banks are stuck with nearly Rs 7,000 crore worth of loans they had advanced to the grounded airline.

After a meeting with the heads of state-run banks to review mounting non-performing assets of banks in the wake of the economic downturn as well as large number of stalled projects, Chidambaram said, ‘it was not a full-scale review. The agenda was limited to recovery of bad loans, and development and issues in stalled and new projects.’

By adding further, he said, the banks have been asked to take firm steps to recover loans as the country cannot afford to have affluent promoters and sick companies. The government has also directed banks to constitute a board-level committee for monitoring loan recoveries, and sought review of NPAs worth Rs 1 crore and above by the board of directors. The finance ministry will also start holding sectoral meetings with state governments and promoters to move things forward.

As of December 2012, gross nonperforming assets of public sector banks have risen from Rs 71,080 crore in March 2011 to Rs 1.55 lakh crore. Further, as many as 215 projects with investments of Rs 7 lakh crore are currently stalled, and banks have disbursed about Rs 54,000-crore loans towards these projects. Moreover, stalled projects, mainly due to coal linkage, environment clearances and land acquisition problems in sectors like power, coal, iron, steel and road transport have further added to the problem of bad loans.

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