Concern in Rajya Sabha over rising number of bank loan defaults

NEW DELHI: JD(U) today raised concern in Rajya Sabha over increasing number loan defaults in the country while referring to the CBI arrest of a bank CMD for bribery for not converting the outstanding loan of a private company into a Non-Performing Asset (NPA).

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, K C Tyagi said ever since nationalisation of banks in the late 60s, "several lakh crores were due on capitalists".

He said that when V P Singh was Prime Minister, arrest warrant was issued against a capitalist of Pune but he was given bail by a court in the night hours and he got out.

Tyagi said the number of wilful defaulters of UCO Bank rose from 78 in 2011 to 317 in 2013. He also said IDBI bank has a bad loan of Rs 950 crore.

He alleged that the Director of the IDBI Bank made his daughter a director saying that if some political leader favours his kin, it is immediately criticised.

IDBI Bank is under CBI scanner for granting a loan worth Rs.950 crore to Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines.

Tyagi referred to incident of the CBI arresting the Chief Managing Director (CMD) of Syndicate Bank over a week ago, after he had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 50 lakh from a company to not convert their outstanding loan into a Non- Performing Asset (NPA).

Reports had it that Bhushan Steel had taken a loan of Rs 100 crore from Syndicate Bank while Prakash Industries had taken a loan of Rs 120 crore. According to reports, both companies were desperate to avoid their loans being declared NPA's for default in repayments.

In another Zero Hour mention, P Rajeeve (CPI-M) demanded Special Trains to Kerala from Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai in view of Onam, to which a large number of members including Deputy Chairman P J Kurien agreed.