Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in India are struggling with high NPAs (Non-Performing Assets) which has been rising steadily since 2009-10. These banks continue to face the dual problem of significant asset quality stress and meagre capitalisation, which has impacted their growth. On 14 August 2015, Finance Minister Arun Jaitely launched a seven pronged plan – Indradhanush – for revamping PSBs of India. These seven elements include: Appointment, Bank Board of Bureau, Capitalisation, De-stressing, Empowerment, Framework of Accountability, and Governance Reforms. This has opened up a debate on whether Indradhanush framework is a much diluted version of PJ committee report and may not be enough to tackle the PSB issues and if these reform measures will help strengthen PSBs and banking sector in India.
Rajiv Kumar, senior fellow at CPR, is an economist and the author of several books on the Indian economy and India’s national security. Dr Kumar is also chancellor of the Gokhale Institute of Economics and Politics in Pune and the founding director of Pahle India Foundation, a non-profit research organisation that specialises in policy-oriented research and analysis. Before coming to CPR, he was Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). He has also served as Director and Chief Executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and chief economist of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), as well as in positions with the Asian Development Bank, the Indian Ministry of Industries, and the Ministry of Finance.He presently sits on the boards of several international and national institutions, including the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre in Riyadh, the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and Asia in Jakarta, the State Bank of India, and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. He was a member of the Government of India’s National Security Advisory Board between 2006 and 2008.
Dr Kumar holds a DPhil in economics from Oxford and a PhD from Lucknow University.
P Jayendra Nayak has had 25 years of experience of working in the financial sector, encompassing policy, banking and markets. He is presently associated with the banking sector in Sri Lanka, where he has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of Union Bank of Colombo since 2014. In 2014, Mr. Nayak chaired the Committee on Governance of Bank Boards, constituted by the Reserve Bank of India. From 2010-13 he was the India Country Head for Morgan Stanley, the Investment Bank. Earlier, from 2000-09, he was the Chairman & CEO of Axis Bank, the commercial bank. During this period of close to a decade, Axis Bank grew to become India’s fourth largest bank by market capitalisation. From 1996-99, he was Executive Trustee of Unit Trust of India, the asset management institution. Mr. Nayak’s earlier career as a civil servant included a tenure in the Finance Ministry of the Government of India from 1990-95, a period of liberalisation and reform of the Indian economy. He has an MA & PhD in Economics from Cambridge University, UK.
TT Ram Mohan, Professor of Finance & Economics at IIM Ahmedabad, specialises in the financial sector. Prof Ram Mohan’s research interests include banking sector reforms, privatisation and corporate governance. He worked in consultancy and in the financial sector before entering academics. For over 15 years, he wrote a fortnightly column for The Economic Times. He has served on several committees of RBI and on the Primary Markets Advisory Committee of SEBI and is on the boards of several companies. He has authored six books and numerous papers. His most recent title, Rethinc: What’s broke at today’s corporations and how to fix it, published by Penguin Random House, was judged the co-winner of the Best Business Book of the Year award at the Tata Literary Festival in November, 2015. He was Visiting Faculty at Stern School of Business, NYU in 2001. He graduated from IIT Bombay and IIM Calcutta and obtained his doctorate from Stern School of Business, New York University.
Usha Thorat chairs the External Advisory Committee (EAC) to evaluate applications received for small finance banks. She served as Deputy Governor at Reserve Bank of India from November 2005 to November 2010. Mrs. Thorat served as Chairperson of the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited, Chairperson of the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation from 2005 to 2009, Member of Board of Governors at Foundation for Ecological Security, Director of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development from 2005 to 2009, , Additional Director at Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. from June 2011 to February 2012, Director of Reserve Bank of India, Director of the Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning (CAFRAL, Member on the Board of Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Mrs. Thorat holds Masters Degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics.
