A gathering cloud

Private banks' woes put India Inc in the dock

In the discussion surrounding the announcement of the government’s recapitalisation programme for its public sector banks (PSBs), one aspect of the larger sectoral problem appears to have not been given sufficient attention. While PSBs now have some hope that they will be able to move forward from the heavy weight of non-performing assets (NPAs) that had been dragging down their operations, a problem of similar nature, though as yet of smaller proportions, has become visible in the hitherto healthy privately-controlled banking sector. Several leading private sector banks have seen big jumps in the level of their bad loans in their