Most banks of our country be it public or private sector banks are bleeding at the moment which makes me wonder if the money which we deposit in them are truly safe and secured? The Net non-performing assets (NPAs) of state owned banks was a whopping 1.74 lakh crores at the end of September 2015 and the number would be staggeringly higher and shocking if NPAs of private sector banks are added to the list. Crores of rupees have already been written off between 2013 to 2015 according to a response to an RTI query and most banks balance sheets are bleeding and cooked up to prevent panic in the economy but the bubble would burst sooner than we expect which would be a disaster as we are sitting on an Time bomb which is ticking fast each passing day.
Some of the big corporates have an amount of debt on their books which is even more than their turnover. Most of the money borrowed have been siphoned out of the country and stashed in Swiss banks while they continue to roam freely on our shores, even at times seen throwing lavish party’s, gambling at derby’s and buying IPL teams spending exorbitant money. RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has warned the government of their misdeeds but sadly his alerts have fallen on deaf years as the political class too has been bribed to milk the financial institutions.
The government would make good this loss by penalizing honest tax payers through new taxes in the coming budget which is poor governance. A stitch in time saves nine and government should recover the money by selling mortgaged property and even sell defaulters core businesses though the markets may crash and bouts of panics seen in our economy which would be healthy for the long term of our country’s growth and progress. ‘Achhe din’ as promised by our PM are nowhere in sight but the future promises to be extremely bad and one must be prepared for it!
S.N. Kabra
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
