NEW DELHI: The estimates committee of the Lok Sabha, headed by senior BJP leader, Murli Manohar Joshi has asked finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia to give written reply to its queries related to the rising NPA and the details of Assets Management Company, announced by the interim finance minister Piyush Goyal.
The committee today has asked finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia, economic affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, representatives from the RBI and the outgoing chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian and top officials from SBI and Punjab national Bank to appear before the committee.
While CEA excused himself from appearing before the committee, citing prior engagement, other representatives appeared before the panel.
According to the sources present there, the committee asked some pointed questions from the finance secretary on the recapitalization plan, which failed to get "satisfactory response" from the finance secretary.
The committee then asked him to give written reply to all the queries raised by the committee.The committee has asked finance ministry officials to again appear tomorrow.
"Even two days back the committee had asked some bank officials to appear and this will continue till they get some satisfactory answer. They wanted more clarity and that is why they sought written response," a senior official from the finance ministry told TNIE.
The estimates committee examines the efficiency and usage of proposed government expenditure of taxpayer money.
"There were queries on what happened to the bailout package which has used taxpayer money to clean the account books of the public sector banks. It also asked about the finer details on the AMC proposed by the recently submitted report by Sunil Mehta, non executive chairman of the Punjab national Bank. As it is under proposal so it is difficult to give details," the official added.
The committee also asked why NPA has shot up so much in the recent time,The non performing assets of Indian banks is currently little over Rs 10 lakh crore and seems to be getting difficult to manage. According to the latest RBI report on financial stability, by March 2019, the bad loans in the banking system is expected to rise further to 12.2 per cent of outstanding credit from 11.6 per cent in March 2018.