No public sector bank faced loss in last three quarters, says govt

No public sector bank (PSB) has faced any loss in the April-December period of the current fiscal year, and clocked a collective net profit of Rs 48,874 crore during this period, the government said in Parliament on Tuesday.

“No PSB has suffered losses in the current financial year up to December 31, 2021. During the said period of the first three quarters of the current financial year, all the PSBs have registered net profit of Rs 48,874 crore,” Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said in a reply in the Rajya Sabha.

Responding to a query on profit earned by PSBs since 2010, the minister citing the data from the Reserve Bank, said the public sector banks earned a combined net profit of Rs 31,820 crore in 2020-21. However, there were collective losses for five straight years during 2015-16 to 2019-20.

No plan to set up fiscal council: FinMin

 The finance ministry informed the Rajya Sabha (RS) on Tuesday that there was no plan to set up a fiscal council as proposed by the 15th Finance Commission (15th FC) and the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) panel.

“Institutions such as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, National Statistical Commission, and the Finance Commission perform some or all of the roles proposed for the fiscal council by the N K Singh Committee on FRBM,” said Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in two separate replies.

The establishment of an independent fiscal council was first proposed by the 14th FC. Its proposed role and functions were later laid out by the FRBM committee in 2017 and by the 15th FC in its report for 2021-22 (FY22) to 2025-26. The FRBM panel and the 15th FC were both headed by N K Singh. “The government has maintained a stand that the existing bodies suffice. The Finance Commission has laid out its perspective in the report as to why there should be a fiscal council, why there should be experts who guide the government on its fiscal policy,” said Ajay Narayan Jha, member of the 15th FC and former finance secretary.

In its report for 2021-2026, the 15th FC had said: “We recommend the establishment of an independent fiscal council with powers to access records as required from the Union as well as states. The fiscal council would have only an advisory role clearly separated from enforcement, which is the prerogative of the other organs of the government.”

The report had stated that the functions of the council would be to provide multi-year macroeconomic and fiscal forecasts, evaluating fiscal performance vis-à-vis targets across levels of government, assessing the appropriateness and consistency of fiscal targets for states, carrying out an independent assessment of long-term fiscal sustainability, assessing fiscal policy statements by governments, advising on the conditions for using escape clauses, policy pricing of new measures with significant fiscal implications, among others.  

“The mandate of a fiscal council could be broadened to cover not only the production of macroeconomic and fiscal forecasts to inform the Budget, but also to advise on setting and recalibrating fiscal targets and rules at national and sub-national levels.