RBI rejigs overseeing committee to monitor restructuring of bad loans

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday reconstituted a panel to oversee restructuring of troubled loans, as it strives to cut more than USD 150 billion of bad debt banks in Asia's third-largest economy have accumulated over the past years.

Pradeep Kumar, a former vigilance chief, was named chairman of the five-member panel, which has three former bank chief executives and a leading corporate sector executive among its members.

"The reconstituted OC (overseeing committee) will work with an expanded mandate to review, in addition to cases being restructured under the Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets, resolution of other cases where the aggregate exposure of the banking sector to the borrowing entity is greater than Rs. 500 crore (5 billion rupees)," the central bank said in a statement.

The other members of the panel include former bankers Janki Ballabh, M.B.N. Rao and S. Raman. Y.M. Deosthalee, a former finance chief of engineering group Larsen & Toubro, was also named a member of the panel.

Raman, who is currently a whole-time member of capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India, will join the panel from September 7, the RBI said.