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On July 3, as the new alliance in Maharashtra moved to get its Speaker candidate elected, chants of “ED, ED” rose from the Opposition. The slogans were a bid to amplify allegations that the Shiv Sena faction led by EknathShinde had joined hands with the BJP out of fear of the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
On August 21, BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh claimed that the Centre had sent ED to probe various cases against TMC leaders in West Bengal since the CBI’s probes were moving too slowly.
These two episodes, straddling two key states in two separate regions, frame the rising perception across political parties that the “ED is now the new CBI” — from being the first off the blocks to probe cases with political overtones to taking coercive action before any other Central agency makes a move.
The ED casebook, too, shows a sharp uptick in the number of Opposition politicians, and their close relatives, who have come under its scanner since the NDA-II government came to power in 2014.
The investigation shows that 121 prominent politicians have been under ED probe since that year, of whom the agency booked, raided, questioned or arrested as many as 115 Opposition leaders — 95 per cent, and that, too, with a staff strength that is less than one-third of the CBI.
This is in sharp contrast to the agency’s casebook in the UPA regime (2004 to 2014) – only 26 political leaders in all were probed by the agency. These included 14 from the Opposition (54 per cent).
The significant increase in ED cases is mainly attributed to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), a law that has been strengthened since it came into force in 2005.
With stringent bail conditions, its provisions now grant the agency powers to arrest, and attach properties and assets, of the accused — and make a statement recorded before an investigating officer admissible in a court as evidence.
The Opposition has raised the ED issue multiple times in Parliament, alleging they were being disproportionately targeted by the agency, most recently during the monsoon session.
It is a charge that the Government and the ED have strongly denied with agency officials saying that its action is non-political and arises from cases first registered by other agencies or the state police.
The list of political leaders being probed by ED since 2004 is on indianexpress.com. Leaders have been listed under the political parties to which they belonged, along with the posts they held, when the ED initiated action against them.
City
Biodecomposer will be sprayed on more land in delhi this year (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Pusabiodecomposer, a microbial solution which is expected to help with the decomposition of paddy stubble after the harvest, will be sprayed on around 5,000 acres of land in Delhi this year.
The Delhi government has been pushing the decomposer as an alternative to stubble burning to clear the paddy fields after the kharif harvest and before the sowing of the rabi crop begins.
Applications have been invited from farmers to get the decomposer sprayed. A total of 957 farmers have filled the form so far, Rai said. The spraying, as it was done in previous years, will be free for the farmers. The spraying itself will begin from the first week of October, Rai added.
Introduced in 2020, the solution was sprayed on around 3,000 acres that year, and on around 4,000 acres in 2021, Rai said.
In the past two years, the Delhi government had purchased capsules from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute that were then mixed with besan and jaggery to make a solution that would be sprayed on the fields.
The process would take around eight days to prepare the solution. This year, a prepared solution is being purchased to reduce the time taken for the process, Rai said. Around 10 litres of the solution will be mixed with 200 litres of water to cover an acre of land.
In addition to the prepared solution, a powder has also been developed by the institute. The powder is being introduced on an experimental basis to facilitate transportation since transporting the solution itself can be difficult, according to Rai.
The powder will be used on around 1,000 acres of land in Delhi on a trial basis this year to determine its impact.
Most of the stubble burning happens in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and there is nearly no stubble burning in Delhi, Rai pointed out.
On the spraying of the decomposer in Punjab, Rai said, “It is being sprayed in Punjab on a pilot basis. The time gap is small between harvest and sowing, and scientists are saying until till the time taken for the decomposer to work is reduced, farmers may not use it on a large scale.
It can take around 15 to 20 days (for the decomposer to work). Now scientists are trying to work on reducing this time period. The decomposer will be sprayed on around 5,000 acres of land in Punjab by the Punjab government.
Govt. and Politics
In Dharamshala, india sets goal : World leader in tourism by 2047 (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Recovery to the pre-pandemic level by 2024, $250 billion contribution to the GDP by 2030, and world leader by 2047. The Centre on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious plan for the tourism sector, with a declaration that includes a long-term revenue goal of $1 trillion by 2047, when the country turns 100.
The ‘Dharamshala Declaration 2022’ was released at the end of the three-day national conference on tourism attended by ministers from 12 states, besides Governors, UT administrators and central government officials.
As the conference ended, Union Tourism and Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy called on states to start work on “a war footing” by establishing tourism clubs.
“Just like the NSS and NCC, we need to work on making Yuva Tourism clubs at district and mandal levels,” he said, adding private players can also be involved in special cases, besides utilisation of the PM Gati Shakti initiative.
At the event, officials said while tourism in most states will recover to the pre-pandemic level by mid-24, especially once foreign travellers start arriving, the numbers were already up in J&K, Uttarakhand and Goa.
J&K, they said, saw 1.42 crore tourists, including 11,000 foreigners, this year till August. The focus now is on promoting destinations beyond Srinagar and Gulmarg (75 off-beat sites have already been selected), besides a renewed push for projecting the Valley as an ideal filming destination.
We have approved 160 film shoots this year, and opened up most of the areas for shoots, even going up till Rajouri, which is close to the Line of Control, adding that they have also announced incentives for films where more than 50 per cent shoot is done in the UT.
West Bengal tourism secretary Saumitra Mohan, who spoke at a session discussing the prospects of medical tourism in the country, said that besides getting medical tourists, the state is also focussing on cultural tourism.
Kerala is also seeing a revival of tourism, but as of now, it is mostly driven by domestic tourists, said an official from the state. “There is a huge jump in domestic travellers and those from within the state, in the wake of the pandemic and an increased demand for wellness tourism,” the official said.
In terms of foreign tourist arrivals, the Gulf countries, the UK, the US and Germany remain the top source markets. “The trend hasn’t changed, even as the numbers have come down.
On this front, the Centre announced that several visa reforms will be undertaken, while immigration will also be made more visitor-friendly.
Tamil Nadu pitched itself as a destination for medical tourism, with the state getting 40 percent of all medical tourists coming to India. “Chennai, Vellore and Coimbatore get the maximum number of such visitors from countries in the Middle East, the UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Express Network
Nutrition rating stars set to appear soon on food pack labels (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the country’s apex food regulator, has released draft notification for front-of-pack labelling to discourage consumers from buying packaged food high in sugar, salt, and fat, which will require pre-packaged food to carry a star graphic — ranging for 0 to 5 — next to the brand name.
Like the star-rating system for energy efficiency of electronic products, the ‘Indian Nutrition Rating (INR)’ will see the unhealthiest food items carry a 0-star rating and the healthiest carry a 5-star rating.
The draft notification comes even as several health experts have questioned the star-rating system, contending that a warning symbol on foods high in sugar, salt, and fat are more likely to discourage people from consuming them.
As per the draft notification, items will be given scores based on contribution of energy and content of saturated fat, sugar, sodium, fruit and vegetables (FV), nuts, legumes, and millets (NLM), dietary fibre, and protein per 100 gm of solid or 100 ml liquid foods. Solid food with a score of more than 25 will be given 0.5 stars, and those with a score less than – (minus)11 will get 5 stars.
“The INR system rates the overall nutritional profile for packaged food by assigning it a rating from ½ star (least healthy) to 5 stars (healthiest).
More stars indicate the food product is better positioned to provide for daily human need of nutrients. The logo shall be displayed close in proximity to the name or brand name of the product on front of pack.
Although not mandatory, the notification stated that food businesses may add interpretive information next to the star-rating logo, giving details of energy, sugar, saturated fat, and salt content.
To generate the star-rating logo for the product, food businesses have to submit nutritional profiles of the products concerned on FSSAI’s FoSCoS (Food Safety Compliance System) portal.
Food such as milk and milk products, whey, butter oil, ghee, vegetable oil and fat, fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, fresh and frozen meat, egg, fish, flour, and sweeteners will not have to display the star rating.
Carbonated beverages without any energy or sugar will also not be eligible for declaring the rating, according to the notification.
People have been asked to send their objections or suggestions to the chief executive officer of FSSAI at the Authority’s office or email at regulation@fssai.gov.in for 60 days.
With contentions on the type of front-of-pack labelling, FSSAI had decided to go with the star-rating system based on a survey it had commissioned to the IIM, with a sample size of 20,500 people.
Explained
The ‘triple dip’ La Niña (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
The ongoing La Niña phase of the equatorial Pacific Ocean has just been predicted to persist for at least another six months, making it one of the longest ever La Niña episodes in recorded history.
It is also only the third episode since 1950 to stretch into a third year. This is likely to have wide-ranging implications for weather events across the world in the coming months, and can potentially aggravate both floods and droughts in different regions.
The periodic warming and cooling of surface waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean — a phenomenon described as El Niño Southern Oscillations, or ENSO — is known to trigger widespread changes in atmospheric conditions, and has a major influence on global weather patterns, including the Indian monsoon.
La Niña refers to the ENSO phase in which sea-surface temperatures are cooler than normal. The warmer phase is known as El Niño. A result of interactions between ocean and wind systems, El Niño and La Niña have almost opposite impacts on weather events.
El Niño and La Niña episodes typically last for about nine months to a year. They usually develop in the March-June period, and are the strongest during winter (November-January in the northern hemisphere), before weakening or dissipating by March or April of next year.
Occasionally, however, they continue for much longer periods. In recent years, the El Niño of 2015-16, spread over 19 months, was one of the longest on record, and was dubbed ‘Godzilla’ due to its sustained high intensity.
The current La Niña episode has already surpassed that in length. Having started in September 2020, it has prevailed for the last 24 months, and looks set to continue for another six months, and has thus been classified as a ‘triple dip’ La Niña.
However, El Niño and La Niña events are not mirror images of each other. They differ in length and strength.
El Niño episodes occur more frequently and are usually associated with more impactful weather events. La Niña, on the other hand, has a longer run. That is why multi-year La Niña events, those that continue for more than 12 months, are quite common. An El Niño is more likely to be a single-year event.
According to a recent paper published by Chinese researchers, almost half (six out of 13) of all La Niña events since 1950 have stretched for two years, while three, including the current one, have continued for three years. In contrast, over 75% of El Niño events (15 out of 20) ended within a year. No El Niño has ever stretched into a third year.
New US iPhones use eSIM exclusively. What is technology? (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
With the iPhone 14 series, Apple has made a big change to the devices being sold in the US. These come without a physical SIM slot and a user will have to rely on an eSIM in order to access mobile networks. eSIMs are not something new, they have been around for a while.
Nor is Apple the first company to remove the physical SIM slot from its phones. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, and Z Flip series do not have a physical SIM slot, including the units sold in India and require only an eSIM in order to work.
Apple has supported eSIMs for a while (since iPhone XS and above), though dual eSIM support started with the iPhone 12 series.
Till now users in the US had the option of using a regular SIM and an eSIM, but now they will have to stick to an eSIM. But what does it mean for users, and is it a bad idea to get an iPhone 14 from the US where the prices are much lower? Well, Apple has answered some of the questions in a detailed FAQ page. Here’s a quick look at what the company is saying.
Apple notes that an “eSIM is an industry-standard digital SIM supported by carriers”. It also goes on to add that eSIM will offer more benefits, especially when travelling abroad because if your iPhone is stolen.
That’s because the thieves cannot remove the SIM and access that, especially if your iPhone is locked. Apple also notes on another page, that for models bought in the US, the iPhone activates with an eSIM.
Apple says customers can store eight or more eSIMs on an iPhone 14 series. But a user can have two eSIMs active on supported iPhone models at the same time. So you can store multiple eSIMs but only use two of these at any given time.
Users will be able to swap between active eSIMs by changing selections in Settings. This will be useful when travelling abroad.
This is where the convenience of a physical SIM might be missed. For those travelling abroad, figuring out how to obtain a local eSIM could be a problem.
While the existing carrier will likely have international roaming, it will come with extra fees and sometimes the plans might be too expensive. In such cases, a physical SIM appears to have some advantages.
But Apple says that users can purchase an eSIM from a local carrier in the country or region where they are travelling and set it up as well.
It adds that some “carriers offer prepaid options that you can purchase from the carriers’ websites or apps before you arrive, or in person after you’ve arrived, through a carrier kiosk at the airport, carrier store or other locations.”
The steps to activate the new eSIM will likely be the same, such as scanning the QR code provided by the carrier or using the carrier’s app. But yes, if you have an iPhone 14 brought from the US, you will need to get a local eSIM when travelling abroad.
More teeth and bigger muscles: ED’s lengthening arm (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
In the eight years from 2014, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has investigated 121 prominent politicians and has arrested, questioned, raided, or filed FIRs against 115 major Opposition leaders. By contrast, during the 10 years (2004-14) of the UPA-II government, only 26 leaders were investigated, including 14 from the Opposition.
Since the advent of the Narendra Modi government, the ED has gone after politicians suspected of corruption with far greater alacrity than other central law enforcement agencies.
The ED’s aggression has been largely on account of its current Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra (since 2018) and his predecessor Karnal Singh (2015-18) leveraging the massive powers bestowed on the agency by the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
Unlike laws governing other agencies, particularly the CBI, the PMLA allows the ED to take cognizance of any offence under its wide-ranging schedule across the country, with or without the consent of state governments.
It has, therefore, been able to register money laundering cases against politicians or activists based on FIRs filed by state police forces — something the CBI is unable to do unless requested by the state government, or ordered by a court or the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
While the National Investigation Agency (NIA) too has powers to take suomotu cognizance of offences across the country, the schedule of the NIA Act — that is, the types of offences that it can investigate — is limited to about a dozen offences.
The schedule of the PMLA on the other hand, has increased from just six offences in 2002 — when the law was enacted — to 30 groups of offences encompassing over 147 provisions now.
The ED’s sweeping ambit extends from serious crimes such as terrorism to the hunting of wild animals, and from the infringement of copyright to false trademarks.
The provisions of the PMLA, which give investigators the power to arrest and attach properties and assets of accused, impose stringent bail conditions, and make a statement recorded before an investigating officer admissible in court as evidence, have made the ED much more powerful than the CBI.
In 2009, ‘criminal conspiracy’ under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code was added to the PMLA’s schedule among various other offences. This has, over the years, allowed the ED to enter any case where a conspiracy is alleged — even if the principal offence is not part of the PMLA schedule. In 2009, the ED also got international jurisdiction as far as tracking laundered money was concerned.
Editorial Page
A question of intent (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Reports that the Union government intends to appoint a national commission to study the status of Dalits (ex “untouchable” castes) belonging to the Muslim and Christian communities is, to the say the least, intriguing.
It is hard to imagine why this government might want to (or even want to appear as if it wants to) include these “alien” religions in the reservation policy when they were explicitly excluded from the Hindu rashtra by the founding father of Hindutva, V D Savarkar.
Even if the motivations behind it may be murky, the move itself is welcome because the issue is crystal clear. This was established through a 2008 review-study commissioned by the National Commission of Minorities (NCM) and housed in the Sociology Department of Delhi University.
The survey of ethnographic materials began with the finding that the existence of caste divisions – including the presence of ex-“untouchable” castes recognised as such – among both Muslims and Christians – was beyond dispute.
DMs and DCs were identified and segregated much like their counterparts in the Hindu or Sikh communities. (The case of Buddhism is different because the overwhelming majority – around 95 per cent — of India’s Buddhists are Dalits.). As expected, there was significant variation in specific practices of discrimination and segregation across regions and communities, but this is common to Hinduism and Sikhism as well.
Evidence was tabulated on five forms of caste-based social discrimination – the practice untouchability; enforced ban on inter-marriage; occupational segregation; social and cultural segregation and finally, economic discrimination.
In each of these sites of discrimination, strong evidence was found to prove that DMs and DCs suffered broadly the same treatment as their fellow Dalits in other religions.
The most common instances were separate mosques or churches (or hierarchically segregated seating); separate burial grounds; strict prohibition on inter-marriage with very severe punishments (sometimes extending to murder) for breaking this taboo; and general avoidance of social interaction and cooperation.
The original analysis of the NSSO unit-level data employed five criteria for measuring relative economic status: Proportions of population in poverty or affluence; intra-community differences between Dalits and non-Dalits; average levels of consumption; occupational structure; and finally, educational levels.
The main findings were that DMs are clearly the worst off among all Dalits, while DCs are somewhat better off than other Dalits except Sikh Dalits (who are by far the best off, especially in the rural sector).
As expected, DMs and DCs were significantly under-represented among the affluent and over-represented among the poor. The quantitative section was only indicative since it was handicapped by the small number of households in the NSSO sample that met the double criteria of religion and caste, and by the variations in self-reported official categories.
Life and death (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Supreme Court’s decision to frame uniform norms for trial courts in awarding the death sentence is a welcome intervention.
This is a case that a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India U ULalit had taken up on its own and has now referred to a larger Constitution bench of five judges. In making the reference, the Court acknowledged that the current practice “places the convict at a hopeless disadvantage, tilting the scales heavily against him”.
A scrutiny of the “fairness” of the procedure to impose death penalty comes 42 years after a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab upheld the death penalty and introduced the “rarest of the rare” safeguard.
The 2015 Law Commission Report on Death Penalty recommended abolition of death sentence except in terror-related cases. The report noted the global trend to be a continuous drop in “active retentionist” countries — over 144 countries have either in law or practice abolished the death sentence.
In India, at a time when legislation imposing death sentences are increasing, raising the procedural bar in imposing capital punishment is a crucial balance between total abolition and active advocacy of the death sentence.
The death row debate in India cannot ignore the reality of the structural discrimination against those from a certain caste, class, and religion.
In a 2016 study analysing profiles of 385 death row prisoners, Project 39A, a criminal reforms advocacy group, found that 76 per cent of such prisoners belonged to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, other backward classes or religious minorities and over three-fourths were from economically vulnerable and over 62 per cent did not complete secondary school.
While these prejudices are a common thread in the criminal justice system, capital punishment extends them to an irrevocable, final state of punishment.
Another 2020 Project 39A study of trial court judgments showed that in Delhi, of the 80 death sentences handed by trial courts between 2000 and 2013, over 60 per cent later resulted in acquittals or where sentences were commuted by the high court.
The same study also showed that 72 per cent of all cases in which Delhi trial courts awarded the death penalty from 2000 to 2015 cited “collective conscience of the society” as an influencing factor. The data points towards a flag-waving approach of trial courts in awarding capital punishment.
The Supreme Court in its reference stressed that a trial court must take into account “the social milieu, the age, educational levels, whether the convict had faced trauma earlier in life, family circumstances, psychological evaluation of a convict and post-conviction conduct, were relevant factors at the time of considering whether the death penalty ought to be imposed upon the accused”.
Idea Page
At Gyanvapi , a new politics (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Varanasi District Court order has legally transformed the Gyanvapi mosque into a disputed site. The court has accepted the legal claim made by five Hindu women for the “restoration of Darshan, Pooja, Aarti, Bhog and performance of rituals at the principal seat of Asthan of Lord AdiVisheshwar and of Goddess MaaShringarGauri”.
It is true that the Gyanvapi dispute is not entirely new. It has a long and violent history. The recent verdict, nevertheless, has given it a completely different direction.
The conflict can no longer be described as a politically-motivated mosque/temple dispute. It has now acquired a legitimate legal overtone, which is going to contribute significantly to the emerging political discourse.
The conversion of the Gyanvapi mosque into a disputed site, broadly speaking, underlines three very important political aspects.
First, the status of the Gyanvapi mosque as a functional religious place of worship has important political significance. Unlike Babri Masjid, which was a non-functional and almost abandoned structure, Gyanvapi is a living mosque. It is open to Muslim worshippers and they are allowed to use it for performing namaz five times a day.
This Muslim visibility did not pose any challenge to Hindu religious practices and rituals performed at various associated ghats around the Gyanvapi mosque complex in the past. Banaras has always been a multi-religious city and it has never been possible to think of it in purely Hindu religious terms.
The recent developments, however, have transformed the Muslim presence in the city, especially around the Ganga ghats, into a problem category.
The Kashi-Vishwanath corridor, which aims to ensure easy movement of pilgrims and devotees between the ghats and the temple, has defined the urban landscape from an overtly Hindu perspective.
There is no imagination of a functional mosque in this framework. There are designated routes to visit the temple; while there is no special arrangement for the Muslim worshippers.
This new urban landscape has the potential to exclude Muslim presence in two ways. In a highly volatile anti-Muslim environment, it is very easy to envisage the existence of an Islamic place of worship inside a temple complex as a symbol of Hindu slavery and victimhood.
At the same time, the history of Islamic iconoclasm, especially associated with Aurangzeb, also finds a hospitable space in this urban configuration. The proactive claim that contemporary Muslims celebrate the acts and deeds of Muslim rulers gets legitimacy in this schema.
Weighing quad against SCO (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
When the Ukraine crisis began, Indian observers and officials pointed out that New Delhi would prefer not to take sides partly because its priority was elsewhere — China. Today, in the context of the SCO meeting, this decoupling appears difficult to sustain.
The Chinese threat has been largely responsible in shaping New Delhi’s Indo-Pacific policy. India’s growing apprehensions had become palpable after the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative and the growing presence of China in India’s neighbourhood — as evident from China’s investments not only in Pakistan and Myanmar but also in Nepal and Sri Lanka. In this context, India felt encircled.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared his vision of the Indo-Pacific for the first time on June 1, 2018, at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore where he claimed that the Indo-Pacific “included all nations in this geography as also others beyond who have a stake in it”, an oblique reference to the Western powers who till recently were not welcome by India in its region. The launch of the Quad, a year earlier, was clearly a reaction to China’s assertiveness in the region.
At the same time, India was not comfortable with the anti-Chinese stand of the Americans — the ambivalence was a result of the desire not to alienate the country’s big neighbour.
In fact, India agreed to upgrade the Quad meetings at the ministerial level — something the US was longing for — only after the Galwan attack in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed in 2020.
While the India-US rapprochement in the Indo-Pacific seemed to be more necessary than ever vis-à-vis China, India continued to believe in plurilateralism, a doctrine elucidated by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in his 2020 book, The Indian Way: “If India drove the revived Quad arrangement, it also took membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
A longstanding trilateral with Russia and China now coexists with one involving the US and Japan”. The idea, here, is to “engage competing powers like the US, China, the EU or Russia at the same time”.
India stands in favour of a multipolar world where the plurality of power centres would allow her to play one pole against the other. In this context, New Delhi wants Russia to remain an important player — but this is not the only reason.
This stand goes together with India’s reservations against the West’s past hegemony and the international order that got established after 1945. In his book, Jaishankar points out that the West never really understood India and has been “historically so dismissive of our society.”
Economy
RBI removes Central Bank of India from Prompt Corrective Action framework (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) removed Central Bank of India from its Prompt Corrective Action Framework (PCAF) after the lender showed improvement in various financial ratios, including minimum regulatory capital and net non-performing assets (NNPAs).
The PCA norm is a supervisory tool and is imposed when a bank breaches certain regulatory thresholds on capital to risk weighted assets ratio (CRAR), net NPAs and return on assets (RoA).
The RBI had imposed the PCA norms on the bank in June 2017 due to its high net NPA and negative return of assets (RoA).
After reviewing the performance of the Central Bank of India, RBI decided to remove the restrictions on the bank.It was noted that as per the assessed figures of the bank for the year ended March 31, 2022, the bank is not in the breach of the PCA parameters.
The bank has provided a written commitment that it would comply with the norms of minimum regulatory capital, net NPA and leverage ratio on an ongoing basis.
In the financial year ended March 2022, the bank’s net NPA ratio stood at 3.97 per cent as compared to 10.20 per cent in the fiscal ended March 2017. In the quarter ended June 2022, its net NPA improved to 3.93 per cent.
During the fiscal ended March 31, 2021, its CRAR improved from 13.84 per cent compared to 10.95 per cent as on March 31, 2017. In June 2022, CRAR stood at 13.33 per cent.This is the last bank which has been removed from the PCA norms by the RBI.
RBI had placed 11 state-run banks – Allahabad Bank, United Bank, Corporation Bank, IDBI Bank, Uco Bank, Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Dena Bank and Bank of Maharashtra – under PCA framework after they breached the risk thresholds.
Of the 11 lenders, five PSBs were placed under PCA restrictions in the quarter ended June 2017; another five in the quarter ended December 2017 and one PSB in the quarter ended March 2018.