Parliamentary Panel Summons CEA, ED, CBI Over Mounting Bad Loans

A parliamentary panel today summoned outgoing chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation to brief it on the issue of mounting bad loans.

The parliament's committee on estimates, headed by veteran BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi, was briefed today by senior finance ministry officials including Hansmukh Adhia and deputy governors of the Reserve Bank of India.

Members of the panel posed a number of questions over the rising Non-performing assets and crisis in the banking sector, sources said.

During the meeting, which lasted for more than four hours, the members demanded various documents including minutes of the board meetings of the public sector banks, in which high-ticket value loans were approved.

Subramanian is scheduled to brief the panel tomorrow on July 11 over the issue, they added, while the date for briefing by the Enforcement Directorate Director Karnail Singh and CBI Director Alok Verma is yet to be decided.

The CBI and the ED are called as they are investigating various cases of bad loans and complaints against senior bank officials related to sanctioning of loans.

The banking sector is grappling with rising non-performing assets, which touched Rs 8.99 lakh crore or 10.11 percent of total advances at December-end 2017. Of the gross NPAs, the public sector banks accounted for Rs 7.77 lakh crore.

The rising number of frauds has become a serious cause of concern.