RAISING some hope for the ailing PSUs, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has begun discussions on a proposal by which sick/ailing units in the steel, power and shipping sectors could be brought under the management of select PSUs. “The agenda for the meeting was whether we can involve management teams of certain successful PSUs to operate certain ailing units of companies in these sectors (steel, power, and shipping),” Jaitley told the media.
Following this, the finance ministry asked PSUs such as NTPC, Steel Authority of India and Cochin Shipyard to examine taking over some stressed projects in their respective sectors, in coordination with the lender banks.
The stressed assets (gross NPA and restructured loans) of PSU banks rose from Rs 7.46 lakh crore (14.62 per cent of gross advances) as on March 2016 to Rs 7.83 lakh crore (15.74 per cent) as on June 2016. Bulk of the stressed loans are in the infrastructure sectors such as power, steel and shipping
