The central government is “actively working” towards consolidation of banks, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in a recent meeting with the top bankers and Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Deputy Governor S S Mundra.
A meeting of top bankers with the Arun Jaitley, finance ministry officials and RBI’s Deputy Governor was called to take stock of lenders’ financial position and speedy resolution of bad assets.
“Consolidation of banks was not on the agenda as far as this present meeting is concerned. But I can tell you, we are actively working in that direction,” said Jaitley.
“I can’t give you further details because some of these are price sensitive, but you can take it that there is a movement going on in that direction,” he explained.
The minister further hinted that a solution to the bad loans is coming very soon.
Public banks are suffering from the menace of bad loans of over Rs 6 lakh crore at the end of 2016-17.
“There is no option but to resolve the NPAs as far as the sectoral source is concerned,” a top ministry official said.
“We worked out four refined institutional ways in which banks can actually put their points across to the task force to the specific sector and telecommunication is one of them. In each of the sectors, there is no option but to resolve as you go along,” the official stressed.
