FM tells banks to clean up balance sheets

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday asked state-owned 

banks to clean up their balance sheets at the earliest

, stressing that they have all the powers to deal with willful 

defaulters. The minister during his meeting with heads of 

public sector banks (PSBs) also reviewed interest rate in the 

light of key policy rate reduction by RBI in September. 

Besides, the institutional measures being taken to assist

 banks in reducing NPAs were also discussed in the second

 quarterly performance review in six months. The gross 

NonPerforming Assets (NPAs) of public sector banks rose to

 6.03% at the end of June, as against 5.2% in March this 

year. 

"When we took assessment of certain sectors which had a 

higher level of NPAs, some particular defaulters which are 

common thread running across several banks did crop up for 

discussion," he told reporters after the meeting. The public 

sector banks, he said, "have all the powers... Banks today

 have full authority and autonomy to take action against 

them 

(defaulters)".