Govt plans to provide relief for stressed infrastructure projects

29 Oct 2013 Evaluate

In order to boost country’s infrastructure sector, the government is formulating a plan to determine the way in which bad assets are recognized, which will give lenders more leeway to rescue projects and will give a strong push to infrastructure investment. The move is aimed to provide relief to stressed infrastructure projects as the government is of the view that infrastructure project that has full paying capacity should not be counted as a bad asset just because it has run into delays.

Over the past few years, infrastructure projects of around Rs 15 lakh crore in the country have got stuck owing to the various reasons such as lack of clearance. Infrastructure development is crucial to boost the economy’s growth and delay in the implementation of infrastructure has promoted the government to seek recourse to special measures to get them moving again. The government is likely to suggest that if a robust infrastructure project faces hurdles then there should be a provision for restructuring the loan to extend the moratorium on principal and interest payment without any cost to the borrower or the lender.

Infrastructure lending exerts a lot of pressure on the banks as large infrastructure and industrial projects usually have a moratorium period in their loans in which the borrower does not make interest or principal payment. At present, restructuring of the asset through extension enforces a higher cost on banks as the lenders have to make provision for such assets even though the asset is considered standard. The gross NPAs with restructured advances that are considered standard have risen to Rs 136,970 crore (17.43% of the total assets) at the end of March '13 from Rs 12,190 crore (4.66% of the total) at the end of March 2009, intensifying the pressure on banks. Meanwhile, the government is expected to make liberal treatment of such loans, which will encourage banks to restructure and start projects that may have run into delays.

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