Further privatisation needed in civil aviation, banking and fertiliser sector: Economic Survey

The Economic Survey 2016-17 said that there is a need to to privatise the Civil Aviation, Banking and Fertiliser sectors.

It said, “The Survey highlights difficulties in privatising public enterprises, even for firms where economists have made strong arguments that they belong in the private sector.”

As per the Survey, gross NPAs climbed to almost 12% of gross advances for public sector banks at end-September 2016.

There are at least fifteen more state-run banks with gross NPAs above 10% which include UCO Bank (17.19%), United Bank of India (14.29%), Punjab National Bank (13.75%), Central Bank (13.52% ) and Bank of India (13.38% ) and Indian Overseas Bank with 20.48% Gross NPAs).

To tackle the bad loans problem, the economic Survey 2016-17, has suggested creation of a centralised Public Sector Asset Rehabilitation Agency (PARA) that could take charge of the largest, most difficult cases, and make politically tough decisions to reduce debt.

The Economic Survey added, "Technology has been the main instrument for addressing the leakage problem and the pilots for direct benefit transfer in fertiliser represent a very important new direction in this regard."