Coimbatore: All India Bank Employees Association has urged the government to publish a list of defaulters, who had failed to repay loans worth over Rs 100 crore.

Responding to a question on the expectations of bank employees from the general budget to be presented tomorrow, AIBEA General Secretary C H Venkatachalam told reporters here that the banking sector was awaiting implementation of reforms for the betterment of bank services.

The government should offer loans to farmers at lower interest rates, so that the sector could again contribute substantially to the GDP, he said. The banks, which were lending money with small savings of Rs 90 lakh crore, should open five lakh branches in the rural areas, where there were no branches, Venkatachalam suggested. As the government was attempting to waive NPAs, reportedly worth about Rs 2 lakh crore, it should come up with a defaulters’ list who had failed to repay their loans and book a criminal case and initiate stringent action against them, he said while referring to the reports that business tycoon Vijay Mallya, who owed thousand of crores rupees to several banks, was allegedly planning to leave India. — PTI