PERSPECTIVE

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01:38Why bank employees are on a nationwide strike?

WHY THIS SITUATION?

WHAT ABOUT

PRIVATE BANKS

?

NEW DELHI: Government-owned banks are busy cleaning their books and the dirt that’s coming off them is enough to swallow thousands of houses and bury dreams of smarter cities.Losses of public sector banks (PSBs) add up to over Rs 79,000 crore and bad loans to a whopping Rs 8.6 lakh crore for the fiscal year 2017-18 -- both highest ever in the country's banking history.Size of the 2017-18 annual budget was Rs 24.4 lakh crore. Giving free LPG connections required just Rs 13,000 crore. The entire annual budget for agriculture is Rs 58,000 crore. All central sector schemes add up to Rs 7.1 lakh crore - less than the hole created by PSU banks.Last year, the government announced a recapitalisation package of Rs 2.11 lakh crore for PSBs - Rs 90,000 crore for 2017-18 and the rest for this year. The losses mean taxpayer money will just end up covering losses instead of helping these banks get better and profitable.Banks have been providing for bad loans in the last two years. The first push came in March 2016 when the then Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan made classification of loans as non-performing assets (NPAs) stricter and then in February this year when his successor Urjit Patel forced banks to cancel all restructuring schemes.They made a net profit of Rs 42,000 crore in the same year.