New Delhi : The government has decided to set up inter-ministerial panels to examine financial woes of telecom and power companies and recommend solutions, Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said on Wednesday.
While intense competition in the telecom sector has squeezed margins of some companies and raised fears of defaults on loans taken from banks, the power segment faces a situation where distribution companies are unable to pay to the electricity producers.
“An inter ministerial group has been created to examine systemic issues of viability and repayment capacity and furnish recommendation for resolution of stressed assets at the earliest. It is for telecom and power,” Sinha told PTI in an interview. According to a government source, similar panels will be formed for some other sectors also. The Reserve Bank last month asked banks to review immediately their exposure to the telecom sector, which has a debt of Rs 4.6 lakh crore, and make higher provisions to firewall their business against any future stress.
