Finance Ministry mulls major steps to deal with stressed assets of banks

NEW DELHI: Amid concerns over stressed assets in the banking sector, the Finance Ministry today said some "major decisions" will be taken to tackle the issue.

"Stressed assets of banks is an area of concern. In the coming few months, some major decisions will be taken to deal with that," Das said at the Ficci AGM.

Gross NPAs of public sector banks rose to Rs 3.14 at the end of September 2015.

Willful defaulters account for 20 per cent of the gross NPAs of PSU banks.

Das said while globally India is the engine of growth in times of crisis in Eurozone, recovery in US And slowdown in China.

Outlining the challenges to achieving over 9 per cent growth, Economic affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said skill development and boosting agriculture output will be necessary.

"India is the only economy growing above 7 per cent. Our target is to move to 9 per cent and try to exceed that," he said, adding there was a need to continue with reforms and further boost domestic demand.

Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant said India has to grow at 9-10 per cent for three years for upliftment of people.

"We are working to ease doing business to take India among top 50 countries. We need to improve 30 position in the ease of doing business ranking next year's and in third year we need to jump 50 positions." Kant said, adding the reforms in last 15 months have been the best ever in India's history.

India improved its position from last year's 134 to 130 in the World Bank Doing Business 2016 ranking, among a total of 189 countries.

Steel secretary Aruna Sundarajan said there was a need to deepen reform process sooner or later for growth.

"Reform is necessary for the country. It is necessary for the larger good," she said.

Talking on reforms, Personnel Secretary Sanjay Kothari said the government is taking several steps in terms of simplification of procedure in bureaucracy. Recently government has announced doing away with interview for Group 3 and 4 employees from January 1, 2016.