With mounting bad loans, the second edition of the Finance Ministry’s brain storming session with public sector banks is expected to focus on management of non-performing assets and consolidation in the sector.
The two-day Gyan Sangam — an annual retreat of chiefs of public sector financial institutions, officials from the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India — will be held on March 4 and 5 in Gurgaon.
The agenda would include restructuring and mergers and acquisitions of banks, NPA management and recovery, technology, digital and financial inclusion, credit growth, and risk management.
“This retreat has been held to take forward the government’s commitment to reforms in the banking and financial sector. The growth and change in the financial sector ought to be in tune with the development in the real sector,” said the Finance Ministry on Thursday, adding that participants would be divided into five working groups to devise strategies for specific sectors.
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha and Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal would inaugurate the meeting. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would address the participants on Saturday.
Banks would also be evaluated, on the progress on the recommendations from the first Gyan Sangam that was held in Pune last year.
While allocating ₹25,000 crore for recapitalisation of banks in the Budget 2016-17, Jaitley had said the government will also unveil a road map for consolidation in state-run lenders.
Gross NPAs of public sector banks stood at ₹3.60 lakh crore at December-end as against 2.67 lakh crore at the end of March 2015.