New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley here on Tuesday said that the next monetary policy can be decided by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) if the nominees to the committee are finalised.
"If nominees on RBI MPC are decided, then next (monetary) policy to be decided by MPC," Jaitley said at the CNBC Leadership Awards.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has nominated its Executive Director Michael Patra to the proposed MPC. The other two MPC members from the RBI will be the Governor and a Deputy Governor.
The central government has set up a committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary to select three non-RBI members of the MPC.
On bad loans of banks, Jaitley said that the government has put in place all systems to tackle asset quality issues.
"Banks have been executively and legislatively empowered to tackle NPAs (non-performing assets). We need to put banks back in shape so that they can support growth," he said.
"It is important to strengthen banks before there is any consolidation. In-principle the government is in favour of consolidation," he added.
For PSUs (public sector undertakings), Jaitley said that there are some PSUs like HMT (Hindustan Machine Tools) that cannot be revived, so government has decided to close them.
