Jaitley unlikely to attend SAARC meet in Islamabad

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is unlikely to visit Pakistan to attend the two-day conference of SAARC Finance Ministers later this month mainly due to "political reasons".
The conference is scheduled on August 25-26 in Islamabad.
"It is due to political reasons that the Finance Minister may not visit Pakistan. You all know what happened last time and what is happening," highly placed sources said, referring to Home Minister Rajnath Singh's visit to Islamabad earlier this month, which was also for a SAARC Ministerial meeting.
Barbs were exchanged between Singh and Pakistan Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who only had a tense and uneasy handshake during the SAARC meeting.

Pakistani authorities did not allow entry of Indian mediapersons, including those from PTI and Doordarshan, inside the venue of 7th SAARC Home Ministers Meeting in Islamabad.
Singh had informed Rajya Sabha that after the meeting was over, Pakistan's Home Minister, who was the host, invited the participants for lunch but left in a car soon thereafter.

"Keeping in mind the country's prestige, I did what I should have done. I have no complaints. I had not gone there for lunch," he had said.
That apart, in his Independence Day address to the nation yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that India will not bow before terrorism, and also brought up Pakistani atrocities on people of Baluchistan and PoK, saying that they have thanked him for doing so.

Though Modi did not make any reference to Kashmir valley which is witnessing violence after the killing of Hizbul Commander Burhan Wani, he accused Pakistan of glorifying terrorists and celebrating killings in India.
Pakistan's Finance Ministry in a recent statement had said the country would play the role of a "good host" and try to keep the overall ambiance positive.
Jaitley said there are mechanisms for buying stressed
assets and if there are companies within the country, whether public or private sector, which think it is right time to buy at right value, they obviously will make commercial judgement.
"And then, some banks themselves have been considering a stressed fund (asset reconstruction company). But, I think, one of the hopes that the banks have is that two major sectors (steel and infra) over the next few months will see a certain positive direction," he said.

Observing that NPA situation is not either static or permanent, he said: "I think, the current phase which has been reached, at least tells us where the problem is, tells us the magnitude of the problem, it doesn't put anything below the carpet."
Therefore, Jaitley said, "it gets into a position of readiness to brace up for the challenge and I think the silver lining is the two principle sectors which are contributing to it, namely infra and steel -- proactive steps taken with regard to the sector do indicate that probably at some stage this problem could itself start seeing a reversal".

With regard to wilful defaulters, he said, banks have initiated proceedings against them.
"Wherever criminal liability is made out, investigating agencies are also in action. With regard to some of the very glaring cases, banks today even in the meeting have shown clear determination that all money due to the government itself would be recovered and we would take the legal process to the logical conclusion," he said.
On strengthening cyber security, Jaitley said banks have been informed about the kind of problems they may face and what precautions they need to take.
Asked about higher capital requirement by banks, Jaitley said obviously "the more the merrier, but the budget has its limitation".

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On MUDRA loans, Jaitley said the target of Rs 1.22 lakh crore set for last year has been exceeded.
"This year, Rs 1.80 lakh crore is to be disbursed under MUDRA and till September almost Rs 46,000 crore has been disbursed and banks have been told to speed up so that in the remaining months they can meet the target," he said.
He indicated that housing loans appeared to have picked up and overall, MSME loan disbursals have increased.
During the meeting, the financial performance of the public sector banks were reviewed along with credit growth.
Banks collectively earned operating profit of Rs 32,967 crore during the first quarter of the current fiscal, but the net profit was Rs 222 crore because of increase in provisioning, he said.

Regarding Stand Up India, Jaitley said as many as 10,000 beneficiaries have taken loans under this initiative.