The Opposition today castigated the government over the rising non-peforming assets (NPAs), especially in the Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) banks, and accused it of failing to tackle the problem.
Initiating a debate on 'The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017' in the Lok Sabha, Congress member Gaurav Gogoi questioned the government's "inability" to sort out the NPA problem despite several measures like bringing the Insolvency Code.
He quoted a report of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to say that the NPAs are only expected to increase.
He also took a swipe at Jaitley, saying both the ministries of Finance and Defence headed by him are suffering.
Congress member Adhir Ranjan Chawdhury described Jaitley as "Mr Ordinance", saying the finance minister has been bringing "ordinance after ordinance" to legislate.
Saugata Roy (TMC) said the bill was unncessary as existing laws are good enough to deal with the issue.
He said the government should have resorted to restructuring of debts and structuring of the stressed assets to address the NPAs.
Of the Rs 7.7 lakh crore NPAs, 12 companies alone have defaulted Rs 2.53 lakh crore, Roy said.
"Since 88 per cent of NPAs are with PSU banks, the government could have easily issued a direction and sorted the problem out," he said.
Roy was highly critical of the Reserve Bank of India, calling it "inefficient" and "incapable" for not being able to count demonetised notes.
Rabindra Kumar Jena (BJD) claimed NPAs have risen by over 300 per cent over the years and Malaysia and Sri Lanka fare better than India in this aspect.
Anandrao Adsul of the Shiv Sena supported the bill, but questioned why the problem had escalated in the PSU banks when they have government nominated members, and control of the government as well as the RBI.
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