In what could be seen as a clear reference to Vijay Mallya, the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has said there cannot be an affluent promoter and a sick company. He also raised concerns over 250 stalled projects with an investment of Rs 7 lakh crore.
Talking to presspersons after a limited review meeting of public sector banks here today, the Minister said, “Promoters have a duty to bring additional capital and companies have the duty to pay loans. Banks have understood the message.” This statement comes at a time when the issue of recovering loans of over Rs 7,000 crore from Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines and a consortium of 17 banks is heating up.
Chidambaram refused to take the name of any individual while talking about the non-performing assets (NPA) of public sector banks. NPAs was one of the key issues discussed today. He asked the banks to take stern action to recover such bad debts while appreciating the fact that the recovery of NPAs has improved in the last month or so. Gross NPAs of Government-owned banks have risen to Rs 1.55 lakh crore as of December 2012 from Rs 71,080 crore as of March 2011.
He further said stalled projects in sectors such as power, coal, iron, steel and road transport was a matter of worry. As many as 215 projects with an investment of Rs 7 lakh crore are currently stalled and banks have disbursed loans of about Rs 54,000 crore towards them. As far as new projects were concerned, he said, they are also in the same five sectors.
There are 126 new projects for which the outlay is Rs 3.55 lakh crore and the amount sanctioned by banks against these was Rs 43,000 crore. “The real problem is in roads and power. There are 68 new projects in the road sector. There are 40 new projects in the power sector. We have to get them going,” he said, adding that the ministries concerned would look into the matter so that the projects are accelerated.