Banks and benchmarks

The burden on public sector banks posed by stressed assets is a matter of deep concern (“

>Benchmark for banks ”, July 29). With non-performing assets in public sector banks being pegged at over Rs.2.50 lakh crore and restructured advances consuming a whopping Rs.3 lakh odd crore, the burden can well be imagined. The main reason for this is government inaction as far as corporate-owed NPAs are concerned. It is a fact that the corporate sector is responsible for more than half the NPAs. On this, most unions in the banking industry have been demanding immediate action but to no avail.

J. Anantha Padmanabhan,

Tiruchi

As a retired public sector bank executive, I earnestly feel that no comparison should be made between nationalised banks and private ones as they are operate from different platforms. While the brick and mortar branch network that functions using a large workforce has been the base for PSU banks (in existence for more than half a century), most large-scale private banks came into being using the technology network, entailing a large operational reach and cost-efficiency. The government’s majority stake, an inability to make a distinction between management and ownership, a lack of objectives in leadership development and an unprofessional HR management are why it is futile to compare public banks with private ones.

R.S. Raghavan,

Bengaluru

Public banks may have helped industry in 2008 with liberal lending but it is a fact that the government’s stake in most public sector banks has been diluted and there is no compulsion to ‘lend recklessly’. The ‘feat’ of opening ‘Jan Dhan’ accounts is not something incredulous given the wide network of public banks and their workforce, which is 16 times more what it is in private banks. A culture of red-tapism and rampant bureaucracy still exists in the public sector banking system and it is the time to phase out these factors as they hinder growth.

J. Jaykris Gurucharan,

Hyderabad