Banks raise money by soliciting deposits from the general public or using other instruments available to them and use this public money to fund various projects of the corporate or business entities after due diligence. If a borrower fails to repay the money, a bank’s primary concern is to ensure its profitability and safeguard the interests of its depositors. Until 1994, this was the prevailing view of the banks and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). RBI had by its circular dated April 23, 1994 directed all banks to send a report on their defaulters, which it would share with all banks and financial institutions (FIs), with two objectives:
From past experience, every banker worth his salt knows that once a business becomes a non-performing asset (NPA), the chances of recovery are slim. Thus, in order to do proper accounting of bad debts, banks would write off the borrowed money, and interest thereof, in a period of three years. In August 2001, the RBI set up a CDR cell. CDR, Corporate Debt Restructuring, is nothing but reorganization of a company’s outstanding debt. Under this arrangement, a borrower company is allowed more time to repay the debt, and the interest rates are cut to a minimum so as to reduce the burden of debt on the company. It is presumed that this would help a company to increase its ability to meet its obligations and come out of the red. Some part or whole of the debt may be written off by creditors for equity in the company. While CDR proved to be a useful device for the corporate defaulters to bolster their losing businesses with infusion of fresh funds at much cheaper rates without fear of being declared defaulters and recovery suits filed against them, this also allowed banks to show their books healthy as such debts were no longer taken as NPAs but as CDR.
However, the premise that such an instrument would not only help bring ailing corporate houses out of the red but would also lead to recovery of debt has fallen flat on its face. Given the experience so far, the instrument is unlikely to pay off. The RBI, instead of taking tough remedial measures to recover public money, has chosen to bury its face in the sand like an ostrich, as it stopped asking banks to report their NPAs to it in 2014!
In 2015 it was realized that despite CDR, NPAs had ballooned to over Rs. 3.5 lakh crore, RBI devised another strategy to help defaulting corporate borrowers evade punitive action. Now, banks could take recourse to the strategic debt restructuring scheme, wherein a consortium of lenders converts a part of their loan in an ailing company into equity, with the consortium owning at least 51 per cent stake. The SDR scheme provides banks significant relaxation from the RBI rules for 18 months. Loans restructured under the scheme are not treated as non-performing assets and banks have to make low provisions of 5 per cent in most cases. This again enables banks to report lower NPAs and higher profits for 18 months. By making banks majority owners and replacing the existing management, the scheme gives lenders the powers to turnaround the ailing company, make it financially viable and recover their dues by selling the firm to a new promoter. Loan thus restructured can be repaid in 25 years.
Contrary to RBI’s expectations, SDR scheme has met the same fate as CDR. According to unconfirmed sources, the bad debt now locked in the form of SDR stands at more than Rs. 1 lakh crore and most of the losers are again the public sector banks. If we take into account Rs. 3.6 lakh crore of acknowledged NPAs together with Rs. 3.4 lakh crore in CDR and Rs. 1 lakh crore in SDR, the total outstanding bad debt adds up to Rs. 8 lakh crore, and public sector banks account for over 90 per cent. With a cumulative market cap of about Rs. 2.7 lakh crore, the bad debts of all the nationalized banks are over three times their worth.
In a decision dated Dec 16, 2015, the Supreme Court ordered RBI to release information about its activities and the banks it is expected to regulate. Rooting for transparency in its functioning and calling for more stringent measures to punish non-compliance, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said in his New Year message to his officers: “It has often been said that India is a weak state. Not only are we accused of not having the administrative capacity of ferreting out wrong doing, we do not punish the wrong-doer – unless he is small and weak. This belief feeds on itself. No one wants to go after the rich and well-connected wrong-doer, which means they get away with even more.”
However, RBI has shown it does not care a fig about those words of transparency and accountability as it is refusing to share information with RTI requesters including in clear violation of the Supreme Court order. It leaves no one in doubt on whose side the officialdom of the central bank stands.
My View:
It is just a matter of common sense never to lend sick unit more money and expect it to turn around and repay the debt and also additional debt. It will never work. How our banks feel that this type of schemes will work is again a matter of simple guess. In public sector banks, executives work to please their political bosses not for banks and its depositors interests. No one is accountable or answerable. All will share the booty of wrong doings. After all the money belongs to depositors and nation and not their own. CDR and SDR schemes are fraudulent schemes designed with the objectives of 'Public money for private profits' and 'Risk spread on the nation and profits privatized'. Ridiculous it may sound but in reality, it will be the duty of poor people to support during bad times and during good times the wealthy & educated will knock off the benefits and demands poor people to wait for benefits to trickle down to them with time. The best example is Kingfisher Airlines which was lent over Rs.8,000 crores without any collateral security by our public sector banks and lost the whole money, while Vijay Mallya escaped. Almost all infra companies are saddled with massive loans from banks and their net worth dwindling and repayments unlikely in near future.
- To alert banks and financial institutions (FIs) and to put them on guard against borrowers who have defaulted in their dues to lending institutions.
- To make public the names of the borrowers who have defaulted and against whom recovery suits have been filed by banks/FIs.
From past experience, every banker worth his salt knows that once a business becomes a non-performing asset (NPA), the chances of recovery are slim. Thus, in order to do proper accounting of bad debts, banks would write off the borrowed money, and interest thereof, in a period of three years. In August 2001, the RBI set up a CDR cell. CDR, Corporate Debt Restructuring, is nothing but reorganization of a company’s outstanding debt. Under this arrangement, a borrower company is allowed more time to repay the debt, and the interest rates are cut to a minimum so as to reduce the burden of debt on the company. It is presumed that this would help a company to increase its ability to meet its obligations and come out of the red. Some part or whole of the debt may be written off by creditors for equity in the company. While CDR proved to be a useful device for the corporate defaulters to bolster their losing businesses with infusion of fresh funds at much cheaper rates without fear of being declared defaulters and recovery suits filed against them, this also allowed banks to show their books healthy as such debts were no longer taken as NPAs but as CDR.
However, the premise that such an instrument would not only help bring ailing corporate houses out of the red but would also lead to recovery of debt has fallen flat on its face. Given the experience so far, the instrument is unlikely to pay off. The RBI, instead of taking tough remedial measures to recover public money, has chosen to bury its face in the sand like an ostrich, as it stopped asking banks to report their NPAs to it in 2014!
In 2015 it was realized that despite CDR, NPAs had ballooned to over Rs. 3.5 lakh crore, RBI devised another strategy to help defaulting corporate borrowers evade punitive action. Now, banks could take recourse to the strategic debt restructuring scheme, wherein a consortium of lenders converts a part of their loan in an ailing company into equity, with the consortium owning at least 51 per cent stake. The SDR scheme provides banks significant relaxation from the RBI rules for 18 months. Loans restructured under the scheme are not treated as non-performing assets and banks have to make low provisions of 5 per cent in most cases. This again enables banks to report lower NPAs and higher profits for 18 months. By making banks majority owners and replacing the existing management, the scheme gives lenders the powers to turnaround the ailing company, make it financially viable and recover their dues by selling the firm to a new promoter. Loan thus restructured can be repaid in 25 years.
Contrary to RBI’s expectations, SDR scheme has met the same fate as CDR. According to unconfirmed sources, the bad debt now locked in the form of SDR stands at more than Rs. 1 lakh crore and most of the losers are again the public sector banks. If we take into account Rs. 3.6 lakh crore of acknowledged NPAs together with Rs. 3.4 lakh crore in CDR and Rs. 1 lakh crore in SDR, the total outstanding bad debt adds up to Rs. 8 lakh crore, and public sector banks account for over 90 per cent. With a cumulative market cap of about Rs. 2.7 lakh crore, the bad debts of all the nationalized banks are over three times their worth.
In a decision dated Dec 16, 2015, the Supreme Court ordered RBI to release information about its activities and the banks it is expected to regulate. Rooting for transparency in its functioning and calling for more stringent measures to punish non-compliance, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said in his New Year message to his officers: “It has often been said that India is a weak state. Not only are we accused of not having the administrative capacity of ferreting out wrong doing, we do not punish the wrong-doer – unless he is small and weak. This belief feeds on itself. No one wants to go after the rich and well-connected wrong-doer, which means they get away with even more.”
However, RBI has shown it does not care a fig about those words of transparency and accountability as it is refusing to share information with RTI requesters including in clear violation of the Supreme Court order. It leaves no one in doubt on whose side the officialdom of the central bank stands.
Public money for private profits;
Risk spread on the nation and profits privatized.
My View:
It is just a matter of common sense never to lend sick unit more money and expect it to turn around and repay the debt and also additional debt. It will never work. How our banks feel that this type of schemes will work is again a matter of simple guess. In public sector banks, executives work to please their political bosses not for banks and its depositors interests. No one is accountable or answerable. All will share the booty of wrong doings. After all the money belongs to depositors and nation and not their own. CDR and SDR schemes are fraudulent schemes designed with the objectives of 'Public money for private profits' and 'Risk spread on the nation and profits privatized'. Ridiculous it may sound but in reality, it will be the duty of poor people to support during bad times and during good times the wealthy & educated will knock off the benefits and demands poor people to wait for benefits to trickle down to them with time. The best example is Kingfisher Airlines which was lent over Rs.8,000 crores without any collateral security by our public sector banks and lost the whole money, while Vijay Mallya escaped. Almost all infra companies are saddled with massive loans from banks and their net worth dwindling and repayments unlikely in near future.
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