New Delhi : CBI Director Anil Sinha favoured “strong action with surgical precision” to check banking frauds which has led to accumulation of non-performing assets (NPA) worth Rs 2.22 lakh crore with the banks.
Addressing a conference of anti-corruption officials here, he said a strict regimen that instills financial discipline and deep-rooted sense of probity percolating down to the lowest rungs in the financial sector, especially banks and other financial institutions engaged in lending, is the need of the hour to detect the frauds.
“Probably, this may see a rise in the detection of frauds and bad debts, not to forget the NPAs, that have remained hitherto under the carpet, like the proverbial skeletons tumbling out of the cupboard,” Sinha said.
In percentage terms, the NPAs have grown from 2 per cent of gross advances in 2009 to more than 3.8 per cent of gross advances in 2014, the CBI chief said. “If we add to the NPAs, the poorly performing restructured loan accounts and other sub-standard assets, the situation becomes even more grim,” he said.
