Letters: Bad debts and mergers

This refers to the report "Ministries spar over due-diligence reports" (December 11). While admiring the ministries, the regulator and the expert committees of the regulator for fixing a time schedule before which the new bank licences are to be issued, the common man feels that a similar strict time schedule should have been prescribed for dealing with the equally important issue of the merger of public sector banks, and the reduction of their increasing non-performing assets. Writing about the heavily indebted Kingfisher Airlines in the report "Kingfisher on ground, banks' money up in the air" (December 7), your newspaper rightly highlighted the important issue. For the common man who has put his valuable savings in these banks, the recovery of their bad debts, and the merging of nearly 20 public sector banks into a few banks that can be called global in character, are far more urgent tasks for the government and the regulator than allotting new banking licences. It is just like the civil aviation ministry ordering dozens of costly Dreamliners for the stricken state-run Air India without putting in place comprehensive recovery measures for the ailing airlines.

S Subramanyan Navi Mumbai

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