Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will hold a review meeting with chief executive officers (CEOs) of public sector banks (PSBs) on Monday to discuss various issues, including progress on credit offtake during Loan Mela, state of non-performing asset (NPA) and pre-merger issues.
“The main agenda of the meeting will be the status of credit offtake by banks including retail loan and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector. The pre-merger issues will also be discussed,” said a source from the Finance Ministry.
According to the assessment of the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), there is a virtual crash in the commercial credit, which has slumped from Rs 7.76 lakh crore to Rs 90,995 crore.
Interestingly ‘non-food credit’ by banks, which was Rs 1.65 lakh crore last fiscal has contracted to Rs 93,700 crore this year.
This is the second meeting of the finance minister with CEOs of PSBs. Earlier, she was part of the annual performance review on September 19, when she announced to organise Loan Mela in 400 identified districts to boost credit flow to retail customers and small businesses.
The first phase of outreach programme was held across 226 districts across the country in the first week of October. The second phase will be held in 209 districts between October 21 and October 25, before Diwali.
“The meeting will have discussions over the merger issues, preparation and progress on them and the latest NPA status of the banks,” the official added.
In August, the central government has announced to go ahead with four sets of mergers — Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, and United Bank of India; Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank; Union Bank of India, Andhra Bank, and Corporation Bank; and Indian Bank and Allahabad Bank.
The announcement came after the gross domestic products growth hit a six-year low.