In its executive order, it said the "stressed assets in the banking system have reached unacceptably high levels and urgent measures are required for their resolution." India remains the world's fastest-growing major economy, but its banks are saddled with some of the highest levels of bad debt in the emerging markets according to the International Monetary Fund. That means banks are stretched too thin to lend for fresh investments.
But industry experts said it was not clear that the latest move would be sufficient to tackle the problem. "It's another tool amongst the many the government has launched without success in the past, and I'm not sure how much it changes things," Ashish Gupta, Credit Suisse's head of equity research, told AFP. "We need to see how RBI moves on this."
India's bad loan problem received national attention last year in March when beer and airline tycoon Vijay Mallya fled to the UK to avoid paying nearly $1 billion in loans that he owed banks. According to Credit Suisse, some 12 trillion rupees ($185 billion) have soured, the bulk of it at public-sector banks. The 10 largest corporates in the country are also the most burdened with debt and owe a collective 7.5 trillion rupees.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2017