Reject proposal to create 'bad bank': Yechury tells PM Modi

CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Tuesday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to act aggressively upon the recovery of bad loans on priority.

"Anything less would be tantamount to dereliction of your constitutional duty as the PM of this country," Yechury said in his letter to Prime Minister Modi.

The CPI (M) leader referred to recent reports suggesting that bad loan provisioning for most state-owned banks doubled and even trebled in some cases during 2015-16.

But the government waived loans to the tune of Rs. 59,547 crore of big borrowers during the fiscal, he said.

Yechury suggested the big borrowers have viable assets that can be easily recovered by the banks if backed up with political determination.

He also said that the government has come up with a proposal to divert all bad loans from state-owned banks by creating a single "bad bank".

"You must begin by making public their names with the due amount. A failure to do so would mean that your government is making our working people pay for the criminality of the rich defaulters. This is an inversion of the principle of natural justice," he said.

The CPI (M) leader further said that the need of the hour is to put into practice an urgent action plan to start recovery of pending loans from top 100 borrowers.