 Good afternoon. Welcome to New Skit. Today, we have joining us Mr. Thomas Franco, who is the General Secretary of AIBOC. Today, we are going to talk about how they have been rising NPS in the public sector banks. We have seen the FIDI Bill introduced, which seems to definitely put public sector banks in danger. We have seen the threat of privatization. And now, we are seeing that low-level bank employees are actually being made the scapegoats for big corporate loots in the public sector banks. So, Mr. Thomas Franco, can you please tell us a little bit more about what is actually really going on over here. Let me thank NewsClick for the efforts you have taken against this FIDI Bill. Today, at least it has been put on a back burner. The government has stated that the joint parliamentary committee which was initially asked to submit their recommendations in December in the winter session of the parliament itself. Now, that has been postponed and they are given time up to the last day of the monsoon session of the parliament. So, I am confident that this bill, which has created so much of problem mainly due to this bail-in concept and the haircut concept that is not going to come through soon. And we will have to put more efforts to see that it does not come back to the parliament at all. Now, the major issue as you are asking is the problem related to the non-performing assets. One thing we have to understand is that banking is a credit risk and always there has been non-performing assets. Today, a money lender lent money to somebody also. He will always plan. He will always imagine that some portion of the money will not come back for various reasons. The same is the concept with the banking sector also. We had been writing off bad debts for donkeys years, but that did not affect the banking sector as a whole because what we were writing off was small amounts. Today, unfortunately, when we are talking about writing off, it is in crores and crores of money. Like last year itself, we have written off 68000 crores. These all belong to big corporates. That is the difference which is affecting the balance sheet of the bank. Now, for the common man, he does not understand what is happening within the banking sector. He thinks that my tax payers money is being taken off and given away, which is a wrong concept. In fact, there is an article written by Dr. Somyagandhi Ghosh, who is chief economist of State Bank of India, where he had stated that 15 years he had done an assessment. The amount invested by the government of India and the return paid by the public sector banks in the form of dividends and taxes is almost 300 percent of the investment. So, it is not that we are taking away the public money and spending for write off. That is not the correct analysis. And they have to look at the gross profit or the operational profit. Last year, our operational profit in 21 banks was 158000 crores. Unfortunately, the provisions were 168000 crores. So, there was a net loss. And this net loss is only a paper figure. It is not that banks are suffering so much because of that loss. Now, who is responsible for this is very important. One hand, yes, there are some recalcitrant borrowers whom we call as willful defaulters. But the willful default is less than 10 percent of the total default. Now, it is the Reserve Bank of India, which has been changing the asset classification norms and the provisioning norms. Some of these norms have become totally irrational. For example, now they have said that from 28th February, any loan which is defaulting of even payment of interest for 30 days, it has to be classified as a non-performing. So long it was 90 days. In fact, it was brought down from 360 to 180 and 90. And now suddenly when they change it to 30 days, a housing loan borrower you think of. One installment is not able to pay maybe because of an emergency at home. Somebody falls sick. He is defaulting. Then immediately you are classifying that loan as NPA. Without taking into consideration the asset he has mortgaged to the bank. The value of the property is at least 150 times of the loan outstanding. And why do you classify the whole amount as NPA? You are not classifying just one installment. You are classifying the entire amount as NPA. That puts pressure on the banks and the provisions we create for that, that is affecting the balance sheet of the bank. Number two, now they have said that accounts which are 180 days old where interest has not been serviced. For loans outstanding above 2000 crores, immediately transfer it to the national company law tribunal. NCLT is already burdened with 9000 cases. The first case set of cases, 12 cases which was recommended to them in June 2017, not a single account has been settled so far. They were supposed to complete it within 180 days. That has not happened. And now you are putting a provision which is irrational that the moment you transfer the account to NCLT the bank has to create the provision of 50 percent this year and next year 50 percent. How it is possible and why it should be? After all all these accounts they have certain assets. They have land, they have buildings, they have other securities which were created out of our finance. For example, you take the steel sector. Definitely the steel companies are having so much of property and why we should create 100 percent provision without taking into account what is the availability of security. So, our demand is that you should create a provision based on the real value of the property what is realizable which we call it the fair price value. Instead of that blindly asking to provide 50 percent this year, next year 50 percent that is going to affect the balance sheets very badly. Our assessment is that all the banks will be making loss during this financial year if this norms are followed. And it is this same reserve bank of India which are created mechanisms for restructuring called CDR, SDR, S4A, 5 by 25 scheme and none of these schemes are worked. Some of them have at least helped some industry, but today suddenly they are saying that they will withdraw all these schemes. Then immediately the bank has to provide for 100 percent provision that is a dangerous step without understanding the reality of the Indian banking system. They are proposing this kind of idea or probably with an ulterior motive that later show that this banks are not doing well. There is a old saying call the dog mad before you shoot it. So, that way they are trying to show that banks are not doing well which is not the fact. The deposits, advances, gross profit is steadily increasing. This net profit is mostly because of the provisioning norms and there is realizable security available. So, it is high time they have a review from the all India bank offices confederation. From yesterday we have launched a campaign, we have returned to the finance minister, we have returned to the RBI governor, we have returned to Nitya Yoke, we have returned to the members of parliament, we have returned to the prime minister saying that you are leading to a situation where there is going to be a banking crisis by April, May once the accounts are published that will be dangerous for the country as a whole. So, immediately they should intervene and put an end to this so called asset classification and provisioning norms taking into a scientific analysis of what should be the provision that is all we demand. We are not saying that there should not be any provision, but there should be an analysis scientific analysis based on what are the securities available, what are the insurances available, what is the paying capacity of the borrower all that has to be assessed and we have also given with details how these norms are different from other countries. There are countries which 20 countries we have analysed and given the data that nobody is using this kind of stringent norms which is creating problem for the bank rather than helping the bank and we are also demanding that please implement the recommendations of the parliament standing committee on finance which has clearly stated what steps should be taken and the most important step they had recommended is that the development financial institutions were closed down by the government. So, the banking sector the commercial banks had to come to the rescue and they have learnt to sectors like steel, infrastructure, power, telecom, mining and which has led to the huge NPA for which the government also should be held responsible and the solution they have suggested is transfer this infrastructure loans to the industrial finance corporation which is an existing development financial institution. So, then they convert it into a long term finance and allow the industry to survey and get the repayment then over a period of time that way the banks also will be able to clean their balance sheets and they will start lending more and that will create employment opportunities, economic growth will really happen if that happens that is a very scientific reason and the government should act immediately if not the government will be leading the whole country into a crisis. Thank you so much sir for giving us clarity on what exactly is happening in the banking sector and how there is actually a real danger for the banks to go into crisis and I think I hope that the government takes cognizance of the fact that the bank employees and officers unions are not going to take this lying down and they are going to make sure that the people's money is safe. Thank you.