RBI Governor Urjit Patel Likely To Appear Before Parliamentary Panel Tomorrow

Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel is likely to face tough questions from a parliamentary panel tomorrow on a range of issues including the amount of cash returned post demonetisation, the Punjab National Bank fraud and mounting bad loans in the Indian banking system.

Patel is scheduled to appear before the Parliament's Standing Committee on finance headed by Congress leader Veerappa Moily. It has members from various political parties, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"It's been long time and the RBI has still not come out with amount of the cash returned into the system post demonetisation. The Governor must share these details with the panel and I hope he will do it tomorrow," said TMC MP and member of the panel Dinesh Trivedi.

The panel, he said, would also ask questions about the mounting bad loans in the banking system and the Rs 13,000 crore Punjab National Bank fraud, which raises doubts about the monitoring system of the RBI.

In his last appearance before the panel, Patel was also questioned on loan restructuring programmes, which lead to evergreening of loans, and resolution of defaults under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, sources said.

BJP member of parliament Nishikant Dubey had questioned the RBI's schemes like Corporate Debt Restructuring, Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets, and Strategic Debt Restructuring, saying that instead of checking loan defaults they resulted in more non-performing assets.