RBI releases names of the 5 members in Overseeing Committee to tackle bad loans

The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday announced the names of five members of the Overseeing Committee (OC) which looks into the resolution of stressed accounts where a company's exposure exceeds Rs 500 crore.

Currently, the OC is made up of just two members and vets only S4A (Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets) proposals to overlook the resolution process of the cases under the scheme.

The five members include existing members former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar who will be the Chairman and former State Bank of India Chairman Janki Ballabh.

The new members will come on board with effect from September 7, 2017.

Other than Pradeep Kumar and Janki Ballabh, the committee will comprise three other members – former chairman of Canara Bank MBN Rao, non-executive chairman of L&T Finance Holdings YM Deosthalee and former SEBI whole-time member S Raman.

“The OC will, for the present, have five members, including a chairman, and will work through multiple benches as may be necessary and constituted by the Chairman to opine on the cases referred to it by the banks,” RBI said in a statement on Thursday.

In May 2017 after the Banking ordinance was passed by the government to tackle bad loans, RBI had announced the reconstitution of the Overseeing Committee (OC) with an expanded mandate.

In the monetary policy conference earlier this month, the banking regulator had proposed to reconstitute the oversight committee under the aegis of the RBI and to strengthen and expand it to include more members so that the committee can set up requisite benches to deal with the volume of bad loan cases referred to it.

The reconstituted OC will work with an expanded mandate to review, in addition to cases being restructured under the S4A, resolution of other cases where the aggregate exposure of the banking sector to the borrowing entity is greater than Rs 500 crore, the RBI said.

The circular advising the banks of the above changes and other details of the process to be followed by banks for resolution of identified stressed assets within six months will be issued separately, it added.