Arnima
New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has launched an online platform to increase the transparency in auctioning of assets attached by the banks. The online platform named as EBkray equipped with property search features and navigational links. The application would be linked to all public sector banks, e-auction sites and would provide single window access to information of properties up for auction. It would also provide information and facility for comparison of similar properties with photographs and videos of uploaded properties.
According to the finance minister a total of 35,000 properties were uploaded through the platform by PSBs. The Finance ministry has also attached assets worth rupees 2.3 lakh crore in the last 3 years. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that information asymmetry was noticed when Banks attached assets are auction but now this will come to an end with the launch of this new application EBkray.
Toxic assets in the banking sector are the epicenter of the stress in the economy for the past few months and reforms have been carried out by the government. Reforms might have helped bands reduce bad loans but the gross non performing assets of PSBs have declined from rupees 8.96 lakh crore in March 2018 to rupees 7.27 lakh crore in September 2019. Their provision coverage ratio has also risen to the highest level in 7 years.
