Another U-turn by CII?

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 21: Does the Confederation of Indian Industry want the government to implement the recommendations of the K V Kamath r...

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 21: Does the Confederation of Indian Industry want the government to implement the recommendations of the K V Kamath report on weak banks, asking for the closure of 3 banks — Indian Bank, United Bank of India and UCO Bank? On Sunday, after bank unions threatened to expose its members who were huge defaulters, it asked the government not to consider this suggestion. Today, its president Rahul Bajaj told PTI that CII stood by its earlier recommendation to close the banks. This was followed by a CII disclaimer saying Rahul Bajaj had been misquoted by PTI and that he stood by the CII stand that the closure recommendation stood withdrawn.

Bajaj added that he was also in favour of disclosure of the list of corporate defaulters. Bajaj emphasised that CII stood by the recommendations made by its National Task Force (NTF) on non-performing assets headed by K V Kamath, managing director of ICICI, even though CII secretary general Tarun Das had on Sunday stated that `CII is recommending to the government not to consider the proposal relating to closure of banks.

“NTF’s suggestion for closure of the three weak banks — Indian bank, United bank and UCO Bank — is only recommendatory in nature and unfortunately only this point got highlighted among the 26 other recommendations made by it,” Bajaj told newspersons here on the sidelines of the 49th convocation of SNDT women’s university.

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"CII is all for bringing out the names of the loan defaulters into the open by carrying out suitable changes in the banking regulation act of 1934 which precludes banks and FIs from disclosing the names of defaulters," Bajaj said.

Yesterday, the face-off between CII and bank trade unions today intensified with Members of Parliament (MPs) demanding that the Government publish the name of corporate defaulters which owed nationalised banks a whopping Rs 45,000 crore, and adding that the CII task force had recommended the closure of three banks precisely because they thought this would ensure that no names came out.

The matter was raised by Selva Ganapathy (AIADMK) during zero hour and he was supported by members from other parties including former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar and Rajesh Pilot (Congress).

When several members stood in support and Chandrashekhar insisted on a statement from the Government, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan said he would bring the matter to the notice of the Finance Minister. He also said the Government had nothing to hide in this matter.

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