Finance Minister to meet heads of PSBs on Dec 28 to review MSME credit status

New Delhi, Dec 27 (KNN) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to meet heads of public sector banks (PSBs) on December 28 to review status of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) credit and related issues like status of overall bank credit growth and credit to non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).

According to several media reports, the government wants to review the progress following various steps taken by it in recent past. In September, Sitharaman asked banks not to declare stressed MSME loans as NPAs till March 2020.

The meeting will be held with the managing directors and concerned officers of public sector banks ahead of the Budget 2020-21. The meeting is expected to take stock of the banking sector and pushing loan growth.

Earlier this month, the Finance Ministry said that public sector banks (PSBs) have disbursed loans worth Rs 2.39 trillion in November to non-bank lenders, large and small businesses, as well as farmers, and Rs 2.52 trillion in October, for a total of Rs 4.91 trillion in the two months.

Despite the Reserve Bank of India making credit cheaper, Economic growth has fallen to over six-year-low of 4.5 per cent in the September quarter and is widely expected to slip further with almost all key components of the economy contracting.

The RBI has responded by cutting rates by 110 basis to a nine-year-low of 5.40 percent.

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