Jaitley says 'need banks to get in the best of health'

Assuring greater capital support to banks, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today issued a warning and stated that the defaulters cannot be allowed to 'sleep well'.

"Our effort now is to get further growth. We need banks to get in the best of health because they need to support growth. We have empowered banks sufficiently to recover dues," he said.

Jaitley further said the interest of global investors in India also has shown an increase in the last two years as the Indian economy has picked up.

The Finance Minister's remark came amid 10 state-run lenders suffering losses of over Rs. 15,000 crore in the March quarter.

Jaitley, who was recently on a six-day visit to Japan to attract investments, said the country has been a long standing support for India.

"Industrial corridor has been built with the help of Japan. We are a preferred destination for them," he added.

Jaitley said the Indian economy has witnessed a rise in the last two years.

"Investment has increased and its efforts have risen," he added while stating that investments will rise after Prime M inister Narendra Modi's visit to Qatar.

Prime Minister Modi today invited Qatar's business leaders to take advantage of the opportunities available in India by investing in the country. He described India as a "land of opportunity" and promised to address bottlenecks identified by them.

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister stated that non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans were mostly due to business-related losses in certain sectors, rather than due to frauds.

Jaitley will hold a quarterly performance review tomorrow with the heads of PSBs and financial institutions. Jaitley is expected to review the overall performance of PSBs during the financial year 2015-16 among others.

"I've called a meeting of heads of all banks in country tomorrow to discuss the same," he said.