Lets Make Our Banks Bankable In The New Fiscal Year

Whether Vijay Mallya will ever come back to India and face legal consequences or not--I am being asked these days. But then the billion-dollar question which should have been asked and discussed is being kept aside—when and how the affected PSU banks will get their money back from the set of wilful defaulters. What will be the recovery process? Will the banks be able to recover their money to the tune of no less than Rs 3 lakh crore with the help of existing legal framework? Will the government now bring in a new set of laws to ensure such mess is not happening in future? Will the defaulters who have been forced due to situation, be it meltdown of economy, sectoral hit or default of payment by their clients, be treated at par with the wilful defaulters? So many question arise at this time and I wonder, who in the government be held responsible for the responses of these questions during these days of crisis. Will country’s apex bank come forward and own up the blunders which took place during 2009-2014, will the former Finance Minister admit it is his mistake or the top management of such affected banks stop disowning their responsibilities and confess—I still wonder. I also wonder how did Mallya, the poster-boy of PSU bank debacle manage to escape the long arms of the law, even if temporarily. Someday, I am sure he is going to come back to India and face legal consequences but then what happens to hundreds of other Mallyas—are the banks going to initiate probe and subsequent legal actions against them and work out the modalities to bring back their own money, forget about the interest amount levied on the borrowings.