How a bad loan farce gets another rerun after U-turn in RBI's philosophy

RBI has started flip-flopping, it'll become that much easier for the tycoons to rewind the credit culture - back to the debtor-friendly show it always was

A new year, a new central bank governor. Yet the first salvo to come out of the Reserve Bank of India’s policy arsenal in 2019 is an encouragement of good old “extend and pretend” lending.

Banks and shadow banks are being allowed a one-time restructuring of loans of up to 250 million rupees ($3.6 million) to micro, small and medium enterprises that were in default on January 1, without having to mark them as nonperforming, the RBI said on Tuesday. Lenders are being given an extension of 15 months (up to March 31, 2020) to pretend that these stressed loans are