New Delhi: With mounting demands from farmers for loan waiver, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Monday said states will have to find funds for it from their own resources — virtually ruling out any funding from the Centre.
“I have already made the position. States which want to go for these kinds of schemes will have to generate them from their own resources. Beyond that as the central government, I have nothing to say,” Jaitley told reporters when asked if the Centre will help states on the issue of farm loan waivers.
The Finance Minister was speaking after the morning session with heads of public sector banks to discuss their festering bad loans situation.
Maharashtra Sunday announced writing off the loans of small and marginal farmers in the face of a 10-day strike by agriculturists demanding among other things loan waiver.
This is the second time that Jaitley has spoken on these lines. In March, he said in the Rajya Sabha: “This issue of loan waiver has cropped up in several States. The Centre has its policies for the agriculture sector, under which we provide interest subvention and other support. We will continue to give all that. If a State has its own resources and wants to go ahead in that direction, it will have to find its resources.”
The meeting, he said, also discussed the challenge regarding weak credit growth as well as the state of resolution of Non Performing Assets (NPA) and the state of finances of the PSBs. “There are already about 81 cases filed under the IBC, of these 18 cases have been initiated by financial creditors. These are already before the National Company Law Tribunal and since the bulk of the NPAs – about 70% – are either in consortium or in multiple banking arrangement, a speedy resolution is required,” he said.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is at an advanced stage of preparing a list of bad loans where resolution is required under the country’s insolvency and bankruptcy rules, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Monday.
Last month, the government tweaked its laws to help tackle a record $150 billion in troubled bank debt. The government has authorised the central bank to direct banks to initiate an insolvency resolution process in the case of a default under provisions of the bankruptcy code.
“The RBI is at a fairly advanced stage of preparing a list of those debtors where a resolution is required through the IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code) process and you’ll shortly be hearing about it,” Jaitley said. Agencies
