Indian Banks

With much written and discussed in media about Nirav Modi /PNB scam , one thing is for sure that working of all Indian banks have become suspect, specially the working of Public Sector banks. It has proven time and again that politicians, rich people and certain type of industrialist take the banks for granted and feel that you can borrow money from banks but returning the loan amount and interest is not mandatory for them, because   with the amount of money at their disposal , they all know that most of the bank employees can be kept quiet either by bribes or by political pressure. I think in some regards operations of  private sector banks is better as they do not indulge in giving loans for fictitious projects or under political pressure , because they are still answerable to their board and share holders. But in the case of Public Sector Banks , ownership is with govt and all these defaulters know how to avoid returning the loan amount, because legal process in our country is so  cumbersome that it will take court ages to come to the final judgement, and then  there are too  many types of courts , starting from lower or trial court, then high Court and then finally Supreme Court. What happens when accused leaves the country and never returns. For extradition of the accused from the other country is then a hell of a job, you all are aware about the cases of Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallaya and others, mind it they are all economic offenders. Even in  criminal cases it is difficult to extradite a person, remember Music Director Nadeem ( Nadeem Shravan fame) in Gulshan Kumar Murder case in late 1990s.

If you see the results of 21 PSU banks in 3rd quarter of  2017-18, then you will observe that only 5 banks ie- PNB,BON,Canara, Vijaya and Indian Bank have made profits amounting to Rs 850 Cr, while rest of 16 banks ie- SBI,BOI,Syndicate, Bank of Maharashta, Andhra, Union, UCO, CBI, IDBI, OBC, UBI, Corporation, Allahabad, Punjab & Sind,  Dena and IOB  have total cumulative loss of Rs 18,943 Cr. This is the loss of just one quarter of the year, what will be total years figure is anybody’s guess. What about cumulative loses of all these banks after they were nationalised, that figure should be mind boggling. It has been reported in press that over last 11 years govt have pumped in Rs 2,76,000 Cr into PSU Banks. Where is this amount  gone, after all it is public money. Govt is pumping more money into banks and banks are increasing their bad debts and Non Performing assets(NPA). What about working of Co operative banks- these type of banks are generally controlled by politicians, and in general the board controlling the banks think it is their personal property.

Does anyone in Banking Sector or Govt realise what happens when these types of defaulters absconds- the worst sufferers are the employees of that company who because of no fault of their are rendered jobless and their dues remain unpaid for years together. You all remember what happened to Kingfisher Airlines Employees when it was closed down, their dues are till date not cleared. I do not know what fate awaits the employees of Nirav Modi’s and Mehul Choksi’s companies, as they have operations throughout country and even overseas.

While going through the press and media reports on latest PNB scam, one thing I fail to understand is, on what basis Congress led opposition is saying that its BJP govt scam, when Nirav Modi is dealing with PNB from 2008 and first Letter of Understanding (LOU) was issued to his company in 2011 by PNB branch and was continuing till last year till the concerned employee retired. The lid was blown when the new employee who occupied the chair now refused to give LOU without co lateral security. It only means that this scam could not have reached this gigantic figure if Bank’s top official, auditors and Vigilance officers were not involved. In the social media there are many news being circulated for last few days about many Congress leaders involvement in this scam. On the contrary credit should be given to BJP govt for taking swift action, not like earlier UPA govt who refused to acknowledge so many times that scam has happened, unless directed by Supreme Court to take action.

Waiting for your feed backs/comments.