Congress and BJP to slug it out over creation of NPA; IBC at work

New Delhi, Sep 12: When the election is coming closer neither the Congress nor Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to give up on major issues including banking and are slugging it out as far as banking crisis in the country is concerned.

If the Congress accuses the BJP taking non-performing assets (NPA) to the tune of Rs 10 lakh crore then the BJP is saying that the Modi government is cleaning the mess of the Congress. Had the BJP not been around it would have been somewhere Rs 12-15 lakh crore.

Union coal and corporate affairs minister Piyush Goyal said that the burden of NPA on banks started from 2006-07 and had gone up to 2013-14. In this period the loan that was at Rs 18 lakh crore had gone up to Rs 55 lakh crore. During the Congress regime, stressed accounts were shown as evergreen account and they were not included in the NPA so the real figure was hidden deliberately.

Goyal said that the government not only disclosed the entire NPA but with the instruments like Fugitive Offenders Bill and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) trying to recover the lost money. These laws are being implemented sternly. The Congress claimed that during the United Progressive Alliance there was just Rs 2.86 lakh crore NPA.

Rajan Dogra, independent director, Vijaya Bank, told OneIndia that as far as NPA amount is concerned there should be no controversy on that as they are on record and every bank has it and one club them to get the final NPA figure.

Dogra said, "I think IBC would be the best way for recovery NPA for the simple reason that once the bank has done their part they go for one time settlement but when they failed with everything then the last resort should be IBC. You see what was happening earlier that promoters were never under any kind of pressure but it was lender and banker who were under pressure because promoters always thought this money belonged to them and lenders had to run after them."

But post IBC what has happened that it is other way round now these bankers and lenders are comfortable. Now promoters fear that their property and business that they have developed all these years. All the wealth creation that they have been doing with the collusion with the earlier bankers that has come to stop now. Now what they fear that IBC will take away their businesses. So IBC is the best suited instrument as far as recovery of NPA is concerned, added Dogra.