Banks must establish ground rules, says SBI Chairman

State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Rajnish Kumar said there is a need for certain ground rules to be established by all member banks in a consortium, keeping in mind the larger interest.

"It shouldn't happen that anyone- either lenders who have bigger exposure impose their will or a small bank with a Rs50 crore exposure in a consortium holds the whole process to ransom. We are trying to work out a solution," he said after his meeting with Finance Minister Piyush Goyal.

Earlier on Monday, Goyal unveiled Project Sashakt, a five-prong strategy to deal with non-performing assets, and to strengthen the credit capacity, credit culture and credit portfolio of public sector banks.

"The committee has set a five-prong strategy towards resolution of stressed assets. 'SASHAKT' stands for strengthening and the whole objective was to strengthen the credit capacity, credit culture and portfolio of public sector banks," Goyal said at a press conference here.

This project was devised by a committee of bankers including Kumar, led by Sunil Mehta, the chairman of Punjab National Bank.

It aims at establishing a number of approaches towards tackling the issue of mounting NPAs and their timely resolution.