ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS
New Delhi, 27 December 2013
Rising
NPAs
BANKS SHEILDING
DEFAULTERS?
By Dhurjati
Mukherjee
The Reserve Bank of India Deputy
Governor K C Chakrabarty recently made a significant presentation, wherein he
pointed out that the banks had sacrificed around Rs one lakh crore by writing
off bad loans to corporates which is much higher than Finance Minister P
Chidambaram’s farm loan waiver in 2008. Recall that the farm loan waiver, which
was criticized by pro-industry analysts, was only around Rs 60,000 crores.
At the annual bankers’ conference,
Chakrabarty had stated: “In the last 13 years, banks have written off Rs 1 lakh
crore and 95 per cent of these are bad loans. Everyone talks of the farm loan
write-off but it is the medium and large enterprises segment that has a 50 per
cent share in NPAs (non performing assets)”.
The RBI official regretted the
increasing NPAs of banks and the technical write-offs resorted to by them.
“Restructuring of loans with retrospective effect has credit quality in banks”,
Chakrabarty observed. In this connection, it may be mentioned that, as per RBI
sources, banks added Rs 4.95 lakh crores in their bad debts between 2007 and
2013.
During the same period, they reduced
NPAs to the extent of Rs 3.50 lakh crores. This was mainly because loans worth
Rs 1.40 lakh crores were written off, while another Rs 90,887 crores were
upgraded to repaying loans status and Rs 1.18 lakh crores were recovered.
The Deputy Governor was squarely
critical of large loans to big corporate houses. According to him, between 2007
and 2013, credit to ten large corporate groups has more than doubled. “We have
seen that whenever credit growth has been higher, the NPAs are also higher”, he
elaborated.
Lately, the Finance Minister blamed
‘tardy’ State-run banks for the high level of NPAs and noted that their boards
and not the Government should be held responsible. “If the banks’ boards cannot
perform their duty, blame should rest with the boards,” Chidambaram observed at
the 20th anniversary of the National Stock Exchange.
Statistics reveal that the United
Bank of India (UBI) has an NPA of over 7 per cent while the State Bank of India has 5 per
cent bad assets. But though the Minister said the RBI and the Government had
taken serious note of the issue, no specific measure towards aggressive
recovery was enumerated by him. It is, however, understood that the Government
is contemplating taking some action or doing something to tackle the NPAs,
which totals around Rs 1.70 lakh crores presently.
It is quite apparent that India has been
alarmed by the rise in soured loans, especially of the State lenders
(nationalized banks) that dominate the banking system. Tackling the problem of
wilful defaults is difficult in a country that lacks a bankruptcy law and has
notoriously clogged courts where getting justice takes a very long time, if not
forever.
Stressed loans of banks are
estimated to be at least 10 per cent of all loans. Fitch Ratings expects this
to rise to 15 per cent by March 2016 (or within another two years.) The bad
loan ratio of 5 per cent for State banks is more than double that of private
sector lenders.
Let us take the case of Kingfisher
Airlines which has closed down for quite some time now.
The controlling shareholder, Vijay
Mallya, a liquor baron, former Member of Parliament and an enormously rich man
with a flamboyant lifestyle. He was unsuccessful in his efforts to revive the
airlines and find new investors for Kingfisher but he openly stated that it is
the Company and not him personally that owes the money to the banks.
It is generally agreed that Mallya
was not interested to revive the airlines as he had borrowed an extraordinarily
high amount from a consortium of banks, specially the State Bank of India. The
question then remains is what action has been taken by the banks to recover the
amount? At best there has been a move to take possession of his “Kingfisher
House” property in Mumbai to realize part of the debts, which is a pittance,
due to them from the airlines. But it has got embroiled in claims made also by
the Income Tax department. At the same time, the question is why were the loans
sanctioned without a proper mortgage and assessment of his huge assets?
Though it is understood that the
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was scrutinizing the 30 biggest
defaulters of Indian banks, not much headway is in sight. The so-called fast
track courts typically take five years to resolve a bad debt and lenders go to
any length to defer the process by various means by using political sources to
get leeway.
According to the chairperson of a
leading nationalized bank, most companies are quite big and when it is known
that the recovery process has been initiated, they transfer the assets of the
Company in the names of friends and/or relatives or get stay orders from courts
by hook or crook.
Moreover, State lenders are
constrained from moving quickly to pursue bad loans due to bureaucratic hurdles
and a culture where it can be considered safer not to take a decision on
recovery fearing political intervention.
While a certain section of
industrialists are interested to siphon off bank loans, this should not deter
the financial institutions to extend help and support to the industry,
specially the micro and small enterprises. In fact, a task force on Micro,
Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) set up by the Prime Minister, has
recommended a 20 per cent year-on-year growth in credit to this sector.
At a recent meeting, Union Minister
of MSMEs K H Muniyappa stated that the banks would be directed to increase
lending to these enterprises. Earlier at an ASSOCHAM meeting in New Delhi the Minister
informed that he expected the share of medium and small units in total export
to go up to 50 per cent for which the banks have to come forward and lend on
easy terms.
Thus, while lending to the deserving
must be encouraged for enterprises to grow – and help in industrial
rejuvenation – the banks would too need to be judicious in ensuring that the
money would be returned. Undeniably, the recovery process has to be
strengthened and a fast mechanism evolved for which both the RBI and the
Finance Ministry has a critical role to play. Also there is need to publish in
annual reports of banks the names of big corporate borrowers as well as ensure
strict measures taken to mortgage their property to pay off their debts. Some
system must be put in place. --- INFA
(Copyright,
India News & Feature Alliance)
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