It’s time for bankers to support wealth and job creators: PM

Modi says banks must work on enhancing nation’s balance sheet while enlarging their own

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked bankers to be more proactive in lending to smaller businesses and help improve the viability and scale of their borrowers’ operations to facilitate the country’s leap into the next phase of growth.

The country’s banking system was very strong now with bad loans at a five-year low, thanks to reforms to resolve their challenges over the last six-seven years. Over ₹ 5 lakh crore has been recovered from the lakhs of crores extended as loans before 2014 that had turned bad, he stated.

“The transparent and committed manner in which the government has worked is also reflected in the money received back by banks. In our country, when someone runs away after taking a bank loan, it is discussed a lot. But when a strong government gets it back, no one discusses it,” he noted wryly in an address to bankers and industrialists on ‘Creating Synergies for Seamless Credit Flow & Economic Growth’.