Indiscriminate lending led to banking crisis, says FM Arun Jaitley

Jaitley added that bankers cannot be punished for honest decisions taken with commercial prudence that turned out to be erroneous or commercially unsuccessful with the passage of time

Indiscriminate lending and penalising bankers instead of empowering them to take the right decisions has led to the current crisis, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during a meet of the Indian Banks’ Association on Monday.

In a reference to the earlier United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime, Jaitley said the banking crisis was the result of indiscriminate lending done a decade ago. 

“One lesson that I have learnt is that when we desire to have a high growth rate, it must be accompanied by strong macroeconomic fundamentals. If we start sacrificing our macroeconomic fundamentals in order to temporarily push up growth, then we