Showing posts with label Ministry of Finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ministry of Finance. Show all posts

Friday, November 17, 2017

Recapitalisation, NPAs and Basel III



Post demonetisation, banks were flush with funds and yet credit did not pick up. Blame was on the surging NPAs that decimated the risk appetite of the Banks. The whole country is now aware that NPAs of corporate borrowers is the villain of the piece. Banks for once stopped blaming the priority sector for the unsustainable level of NPAs.

PSBs have their liberal share and therefore FM announced recapitalization of the order never seen before at Rs.2.11trillion. To call these reforms is a travesty of judgement. Average tax paying person has to bite the bullet. It has the potential for moral hazard.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Debates, Discussions, Demonetisation and Distress

Debates, Discussions, Demonetisation and Distress

Most discussions and debates on demonetisation have a few things in common: the move is right; it is the worst planned event in India’s economic history; calculations on black money went wrong; and rural masses are in distress unable to meet their daily needs. I am a strong votary of demonetisation. I am, however, not a supporter of complete digitisation or cashless economy. Less cash economy can be a target of gradualism and not maximalism.

Former Governors of RBI, C. Rangarajan, Y.V. Reddy, and Subbarao also lent support to the move in their articulations in the Press and media. Kenneth Rogoff, renowned economist also supported the move, but the mechanism suggested was gradualism and not a sudden action like the currently engineered measure. However, would all these articulations, mine not excluded, alleviate the distress of the vast rural masses?

Both houses of Parliament demanded a discussion, but were unwilling to discuss demonetisation for reasons that the common man was unable to understand. The distress of those who had to bury their dead or had imminent marriages in the family, not to mention the plight labour on daily wages has been immense.