Personal Website of R.Kannan
Indian Banking Today & Tomorrow - In Retrospect
Efforts, Results & Review - Measures Initiated
for Reduction of NPAs

Lok Adalat institutions help banks to settle disputes involving accounts in "doubtful" and "loss" category, with outstanding balance of Rs.5 lakh for compromise settlement under Lok Adalats. Debt Recovery Tribunals have now been empowered to organize Lok Adalats to decide on cases of NPAs of Rs.10 lakhs and above. The public sector banks had recovered Rs.40.38 crore as on September 30, 2001, through the forum of Lok Adalat. The progress through this channel is expected to pick up in the coming years particularly looking at the recent initiatives taken by some of the public sector banks and DRTs in Mumbai.For more details about Lok Adalats please refer to page Lok Adalat

The Recovery of Debts due to Banks and Financial Institutions (amendment) Act, passed in March 2000 has helped in strengthening the functioning of DRTs. Provisions for placement of more than one Recovery Officer, power to attach defendant's property/assets before judgement, penal provisions for disobedience of Tribunal's order or for breach of any terms of the order and appointment of receiver with powers of realization, management, protection and preservation of property are expected to provide necessary teeth to the DRTs and speed up the recovery of NPAs in the times to come.

Though there are 22 DRTs set up at major centres in the country with Appellate Tribunals located in five centres viz. Allahabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai, they could decide only 9814 cases for Rs.6264.71 crore pertaining to public sector banks since inception of DRT mechanism and till September 30, 2001.The amount recovered in respect of these cases amounted to only Rs.1864.30 crore.

Looking at the huge task on hand with as many as 33049 cases involving Rs.42988.84 crore pending before them as on September 30, 2001, I would like the banks to institute appropriate documentation system and render all possible assistance to the DRTs for speeding up decisions and recovery of some of the well collateralised NPAs involving large amounts. I may add that familiarisation programmes have been offered in NIBM at periodical intervals to the presiding officers of DRTs in understanding the complexities of documentation and operational features and other legalities applicable of Indian banking system. RBI on its part has suggested to the Government to consider enactment of appropriate penal provisions against obstruction by borrowers in possession of attached properties by DRT receivers, and notify borrowers who default to honour the decrees passed against them.

The RBI has put in place a system for periodical circulation of details of willful defaults of borrowers of banks and financial institutions. This serves as a caution list while considering requests for new or additional credit limits from defaulting borrowing units and also from the directors /proprietors / partners of these entities. RBI also publishes a list of borrowers (with outstanding aggregating Rs. 1 crore and above) against whom suits have been filed by banks and FIs for recovery of their funds, as on 31st March every year. It is our experience that these measures had not contributed to any perceptible recoveries from the defaulting entities. However, they serve as negative basket of steps shutting off fresh loans to these defaulters. I strongly believe that a real breakthrough can come only if there is a change in the repayment psyche of the Indian borrowers.

After a review of pendency in regard to NPAs by the Hon'ble Finance Minister, RBI had advised the public sector banks to examine all cases of willful default of Rs 1 crore and above and file suits in such cases, and file criminal cases in regard to willful defaults. Board of Directors are required to review NPA accounts of Rs.1 crore and above with special reference to fixing of staff accountability.

On their part RBI and the Government are contemplating several supporting measures including legal reforms, some of them I would like to highlight.

An Asset Reconstruction Company with an authorised capital of Rs.2000 crore and initial paid up capital Rs.1400 crore is to be set up as a trust for undertaking activities relating to asset reconstruction. It would negotiate with banks and financial institutions for acquiring distressed assets and develop markets for such assets.. Government of India proposes to go in for legal reforms to facilitate the functioning of ARC mechanism

[For latest information on ARC formation please refer to pages dealing with the subject ARC/SC Ordinance 2002

Legal Reforms

The Honourable Finance Minister in his recent budget speech has already announced the proposal for a comprehensive legislation on asset foreclosure and securitisation. Since enacted by way of Ordinance in June 2002 and passed by Parliament as an Act in December 2002.

Corporate Debt Restructuring mechanism has been institutionalised in 2001 to provide a timely and transparent system for restructuring of the corporate debts of Rs.20 crore and above with the banks and financial institutions. The CDR process would also enable viable corporate entities to restructure their dues outside the existing legal framework and reduce the incidence of fresh NPAs. The CDR structure has been headquartered in IDBI, Mumbai and a Standing Forum and Core Group for administering the mechanism had already been put in place. The experiment however has not taken off at the desired pace though more than six months have lapsed since introduction. As announced by the Hon'ble Finance Minister in the Union Budget 2002-03, RBI has set up a high level Group under the Chairmanship of Shri. Vepa Kamesam, Deputy Governor, RBI to review the implementation procedures of CDR mechanism and to make it more effective. The Group will review the operation of the CDR Scheme, identify the operational difficulties, if any, in the smooth implementation of the scheme and suggest measures to make the operation of the scheme more efficient. For more information please refer the details of CDR Scheme given in another page.

Institutionalisation of information sharing arrangements through the newly formed Credit Information Bureau of India Ltd. (CIBIL) is under way. RBI is considering the recommendations of the S.R.Iyer Group (Chairman of CIBIL) to operationalise the scheme of information dissemination on defaults to the financial system. The main recommendations of the Group include dissemination of information relating to suit-filed accounts regardless of the amount claimed in the suit or amount of credit granted by a credit institution as also such irregular accounts where the borrower has given consent for disclosure. This, I hope, would prevent those who take advantage of lack of system of information sharing amongst lending institutions to borrow large amounts against same assets and property, which had in no small measure contributed to the incremental NPAs of banks. More information on CIBIL schme given in a separate page.

RBI is examining the recommendation of Kohli Group on willful defaulters. It is working out a proper definition covering such classes of defaulters so that credit denials to this group of borrowers can be made effective and criminal prosecution can be made demonstrative against willful defaulters.

A Consultative Group under the chairmanship of Dr. A.S. Ganguly was set up by the Reserve Bank to review the supervisory role of Boards of banks and financial institutions and to obtain feedback on the functioning of the Boards vis-�-vis compliance, transparency, disclosures, audit committees etc. and make recommendations for making the role of Board of Directors more effective with a view to minimising risks and over-exposure. The Group is finalising its recommendations shortly and may come out with guidelines for effective control and supervision by bank boards over credit management and NPA prevention measures. The report of the group is now published and discussed in another page.

In a recent circular, RBI has suggested to the banks to have a new asset category - `special mention accounts' - for early identification of bad debts. This would be strictly for internal monitoring. Loans and advances overdue for less than one quarter and two quarters would come under this category. Data regarding such accounts will have to be submitted by banks to RBI.

However, special mention assets would not require provisioning, as they are not classified as NPAs. Nor are these proposed to be brought under regulatory oversight and prudential reporting immediately. The step is mainly with a view to alerting management to the prospects of such an account turning bad, and thus taking preventive action well in time. An asset may be transferred to this category once the earliest signs of sickness/irregularities are identified. This will help banks look at accounts with potential problems in a focused manner right from the onset of the problem, so that monitoring and remedial actions can be more effective. Once these accounts are categorised and reported as such, proper top management attention would also be ensured.

Borrowers having genuine problems due to temporary mismatch in funds flow or sudden requirements of additional funds may be entertained at the branch level, and for this purpose a special limit to tide over such contingencies may be built into the sanction process itself. This will prevent the need to route the additional funding request through the controlling offices in deserving cases, and help avert many accounts slipping into NPA category.

Introducing a `special mention' category as part of RBI's `Income Recognition and Asset Classification norms' (IRAC norms) would be considered in due course.