New Delhi: Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee flagged concerns Tuesday about banking crisis in India and called for aggressive changes to deal with the situation.
“There is a need to bring in important and aggressive changes to deal with the crisis,” Abhijit Banerjee said during interactions with media here.
Banerjee pointed out that there is a need to bring down stake of the government to below 50 per cent in banks so that the decisions are taken without fear of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
The banking system has been afflicted by the scourge of high NPAs for nearly five years now, which has led to networth erosion and discovery of scams in the sector, with the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC) being the new addition,” added the Nobel laureate.
Earlier in August, the CVC had constituted the Advisory Board for Banking Frauds (ABBF) headed by former Vigilance Commissioner TM Bhasin to examine bank fraud over Rs 50 crore and recommend action.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said August 30 that the profitability of public sector banks was improving as the total gross non-performing assets of public sector banks came down to Rs 7.9 lakh crore at end-March 2019 from Rs 8.65 lakh crore at end-December 2018.
PTI