RBI Governor Urjit Patel likely to appear before parl panel on Tuesday

The RBI Governor is expected to be questioned on the amount of cash returned post demonetisation, the PNB fraud, and the mounting bad loans of banks.

RBI governor Urjit Patel is likely to face tough questions from a parliamentary panel on Tuesday on a range of issues, including the amount of cash returned post demonetisation, the PNB fraud and the mounting bad loans of banks.

Patel is scheduled to appear before the Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance headed by Congress leader Veerappa Moily. It has members from various political parties, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"It's been a long time and the RBI has still to come out with the amount of the cash returned into system post demonetisation. And the Governor must share these details with the panel and I hope he will do it tomorrow (Tuesday)" said TMC MP and member of the panel Dinesh Trivedi.

The panel, he said, would also ask questions about the mounting non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans in the banking system and the Rs 130 billion PNB fraud, which raises doubts about the monitoring system of the RBI.

In his last appearance before the panel, Patel was also questioned on loan restructuring programmes, which lead to evergreening of loans, and resolution of defaults under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, sources said.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey had questioned the RBI's schemes like Corporate Debt Restructuring, Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets or S4A and Strategic Debt Restructuring, saying that instead of checking loan defaults they resulted in more NPAs.