Decision on capital infusion in select PSBs likely this week

The government has made Budget provision of Rs 25,000-crore capital infusion in PSBs for the current financial year

The Finance Ministry is likely to finalise this week the plans for the first round of capital infusion in select public sector banks.

The proposal for the capital infusion is expected to get approval from the Finance Minister this week, sources said.

After the fourth quarter results, each bank made a detailed request taking into account issues pertaining to non- performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans and growth projections, following which the Department of Financial Services has finalised the first tranche of fund infusion, sources said.

The government has made Budget provision of Rs 25,000 crore capital infusion in public sector banks for the current fiscal. At the same time, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has assured that the government will provide more funds it needed.

Last year, the government announced a revamp plan 'Indradhanush' to infuse Rs 70,000 crore in state-owned banks over four years, while they will have to raise a further Rs 1.1 lakh crore from the markets to meet their capital requirements in line with global risk norms Basel-III.

In line with the blueprint, PSU banks will get Rs 25,000 crore this fiscal. Besides, Rs 10,000 crore each would be infused in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

During the last fiscal, 21 public sectors banks got fund support of Rs 25,000 crore. Of this, SBI got the highest amount of Rs 5,393 crore followed by Bank of India at Rs 2,455 crore.

Besides, the government infused Rs 2,229 crore in IDBI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank Rs 2,009 crore and Punjab National Bank Rs 1,732 crore.