Ahead of the 45th GST Council meet tomorrow, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressed a press conference today at 5 pm.

The Cabinet issued govt a guarantee of up to Rs 36,000 crore for security receipts issued by NARCL. As per the Budget speech issued by Ms Nirmala, the creation of NARCL or a bad bank would solve large cases of stress.

The cabinet also illustrated a recovery of more than Rs 5 lakh crore from the banks. Me Sithraman said,” Of this Rs 3.1 lakh crore have been recovered since March 2018.” Recoveries included written off loans as well, she added. Additionally, the recovery of Rs 99,000 crore from written-off assets was also informed.

Speaking about bad banks she stated that since 2014, creating the bank board bureau, creating a framework of key performance indicators, and planned mergers are some of the reforms done for the improvement of the banking sector.

Further, she informed about the steps taken by RBI and the Bank to reform the banking sector in an average lag time of 57 months.  The finance minister also added that in 2018, only 2 out of 21 PSB were profitable, while in 2021 only 2 Public support lenders reported a loss for the full year.

The GST council meet tomorrow would have a dialogue on a number of proposals like bringing fuel services under the GST panel. The Council had last met physically on March 14, 2020, in Delhi.